achtung

Reported in UK news..... DFS bid for UK ATC?

How likely?

Now Germany bids to seize our skies as it puts in offer for air traffic control | Mail Online

Tchocky

What utter garbage.


Proper link.


http://atwonline.com/airline-finance...ats-stake-1212

rab-k

Despite the appearance of being 'Breaking News' this story has supposedly been doing the rounds in our corridors of power for the last 6 months.

Mantovani

If true this is great news for the users of the UK's airspace and for NATS employees.

The Germans know how to build successful businesses.

Lon More

Of course Tchosky. What more do you expect from the Mail? It has always been the DFS's policy to expand. MUAC was, and still is, an obvious target.

Strange to see the place without the barrack block BTW.

Gonzo

Mantovani,

If you have you any friends in BMI, ask them about Lufthansa!

ZOOKER

Mantovani,
You say a take-over of NATS by DFS would be "great news for NATS emplyees", yet over on the 'electronics' thread you say "employees are expensive".
Please conduct us in a logical synthesis of these two apparently contradictory observations.

Mantovani

Zooker

Employees are expensive and we should only be employing those we actually need to employ. Technology is moving on and as a company NATS needs to embrace and exploit that technology.

As computers/systems do more and more work in air traffic control rooms it follows that there will be less and less staff needed in air traffic control rooms.

Who knows, one day there might be more engineers employed by NATS than controllers.

Topjet

Nah, computers/robots will replace the engineers

Aethelwulf

Bet the controllers are replaced before the engineers are..

Standard Noise

Oh do give over, we were told that load of old fanny about ATCOs being replaced by computers twenty years ago............still waiting.

radarman

Airbus A380, arguably one of the most computerised aircraft ever. Who got the Quantas 380 back safely on the ground? Wasn't the bloody computers, it was the crew. Same goes for ATC. When the chips are down it's the humans who save the day.

Kiwitraveller

DFS buying NATS?

A few more details might be useful.

NATS is the only privatised national ansp in Europe and one of only a handful in the world. NATS is not majority owned by government.

Almost all other ANSP in the world are wholly government owned monopolies, including DFS, which is corporatised. This means its run as a company and as a business. It is nevertheless a legal monopoly and cannot go bust. It has no competition for most of its activity. For DFS to buy NATS or part of NATS is effectivley selling to the Government of Germany. Not to another company.

Now making shares available for sale for all European ANSP would be a really interesting proposition, a lot of governments are looking for cash right now! And that might do more for Single European Sky than the nonsense that is FAB.

NATS is already a private company, more efficient and much closer to the EU cost and capacity targets than DFS. the BMI Lufthansa analogy is bizarre but not inappropriate.

DFS is one of the less efficient ANSP in Europe, (I believe Belgium gets the wooden spoon but I might be wrong) DFS has one of the larger cost problems in the first period of the EU ANSP performance scheme, that starts in January, with perhaps 50m euros of new DFS cost saving to find next year, if latest traffic forecasts from IATA and the German government submissions to the EU performance sceme are a guide. Thats a big number for a 1bn euro turnover organisation.

DFS is also at the heart of FABEC probably the most difficult of all EU FAB marriages and almost certainly doomed to the scrapheap in its present form.

What is much more likley than a NATS purchase as a realistic target, is the DFS or FABEC takeover of MUAC in the latter part of 2012.

If you wanted a more interesting prospective investor in NATS you might look to Toulouse, Seattle or Ottowa for clues.

Meanwhile if you want to know more about DFS you could do worse than try page 63 of this ATM directory.

CANSO ATM Report & Directory

2012 is going to be a year of change for European ATC. But my radar tells me that this DFS rumour is just someones dream.

Katie

Gonzo

I wasn't making an analogy to DFS/NATS, I was responding to Mantovani's comment that;

Mantovani

Haven't come across any systems that spec themselves, design themselves, build themselves, install themselves, commission themselves, maintain themselves or fix themselves. So it's a fair assumption that the more systems NATS have the more work there will be for engineers.

I agree there will always be a need for some expert and experienced staff both on the ground and it the air.

Topjet

Whilst I agree that most of the human element will be removed in the future, I don't believe that the engineers will be totally immune from automation.

I could argue i've yet to see a system that can separate traffic, deal with pilot requests/decision make/problem solve as well as human input can. The day this is implemented will be the day the engineers, engineer ways of making these computers be built/installed by robots, fix themselves etc etc. Only design and spec will be left. Unless engineers are clever at looking after their own.... Look at EFD at PC E and the years worth of delays with iFACTS....

landedoutagain

If you remove the 'fix themselves' part, it could easily apply to many (unnecessary?) managers..

Imagine if they could get a computer to replace the managers though, it'd save even more!! And they wouldn't need feeding at meetings...

topupper

Quote "DFS or FABEC takeover of MUAC in the latter part of 2012"

On what do you base this? Idle speculation is not an acceptable answer.

Kiwitraveller

Topupper

Pay attention to EU and state political decisions around Single Europeaan Sky. Eurocontrol is an organisation of states (governments), that also happens to have a historical ANSP role at MUAC.

Eurocontrol has been in 2011 appointed by the EU as the SES Network Manager, it will also be the Flow Manager (same thing really) and the route charges collector. It has not been appointed as an ANSP.

The FABs are now the state organisations for ANSP. Not Eurocontrol.

The political debate now is only where MUAC will end up, not whether Eurocontrol will remain an ANSP. Eurocontrol will also lose it's prior regulatory role to EASA - again this has already largely happened.

Whether the FABs will eventually work is a secondary point (I think they will fail) Most likely in my opinion is a DFS takeover of MUAC, per my previous post. Why? Because the EU is demanding consolidation in Europe and Eurocontrol cannot remain as an ANSP it has lost the legal remit.

LVNL and Belgocontrol will be reduced to TMA managers - which is really all they are now - and forced by the EU performance scheme demands to downsize their costs, which in turn will mean more cost scrutiny and likely a loss of non-operational roles in management. They are both likely candidates for DFS takeover. Just like Lufthansa and SN Brussels really! At the end of the day its about money. This may end up being how FABEC actually works! (with France or Germany absorbing Skyguide)

All very interesting to watch. The only thing that is certain is change. Any of this can be argued, but it is where European ATC is headed right now.

Katie

saintex2002

Katie, you seem to well understand the next future SES policy... but what about the next european ATCOs collective policy ???... Changes or no changes ???... any idea ???...