ATC IssuesA place where pilots may enter the 'lions den' that is Air Traffic Control in complete safety and find out the answers to all those obscure topics which you always wanted to know the answer to but were afraid to ask.
Hi guys. So, as the tittle says.Assuming that one is qualified for the job, with all the skills required and all the requirements fulfilled, is there any way to become an atc after turned 25? Anyone knows where or how it can be done?
I started my ATCO training when I was 26, and some of my coursemates were already 30 at that time.
That's not something you should be worried about, unless you want to apply for a job at Eurocontrol - I believe their maximum age for ab-initio candidates is indeed 25.
And does anyone knows if NATS accept foreign applicants ? I'm Portuguese, And here in Portugal, applicants must be under 25 years old and have a college degree. Besides that, actually there's no private aviation school with ATC Training course. Euro control accepts applicants who're under 25 until October 2014. That means that any candidate applying right now must be 23 years maximum.
I was 37 when I started my 2-year training at Madrid, and almost 39 when I got my 1st assigment.
In Spain you had to have a college degree to apply, pass a very hard selection process (in my case, 165 selected over 7000+ candidates), and the recomended age was around 28, with no limit. You finished with all possible ratings.
Since 2 years, you just have to be over 18, and have about 40K€ to pay for your 22-week TWR training, no ACC training available for moment ...
And does anyone knows if NATS accept foreign applicants ? I'm Portuguese, And here in Portugal, applicants must be under 25 years old and have a college degree. Besides that, actually there's no private aviation school with ATC Training course. Euro control accepts applicants who're under 25 until October 2014. That means that any candidate applying right now must be 23 years maximum.
What options do I have?
Well, you could sue Eurocontrol for blatant age discrimination. I'm surprised no one has gone that route yet.
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Actually there is a loophole in the european legislation about age discrimination that allows just that, and some member states took that into their own legislation as well. Like Portugal as cited above or Germany which has the same issue.
yes, as long as you are proficient in English and have a work permit for the UK (no prob being portuguese) you can apply to NATS. There is no age restriction as it was said already.
In fact your options are the EU countries basically. The only thing you need is to be proficient in their languages. I dont think any of them requires citizenship, just language and work permit.
