Well, it makes up for losing LGW & Brum!
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Interesting - wonder if it's something of a cost saving exercise for the military to start relying more on Civil controllers... I don't know the history of Aberporth so well but this is certainly a deliberate change from the norm!
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Join Date: Apr 2000
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Wattisham (since the AAC moved in), Middle Wallop and Netheravon have long, if not always, been contracted to civil controllers, but the Army has never had an ATC branch. St Athan is also civil now, but it's a maintenance base only. I wouldn't have thought the RAF or RN would outsource ATC, but you never know...
Mentioning Aberporth I should point out that NATS only operate the range control for Cardigan Bay from there, they have no presence on the airfield which is AFISO and operated by West Wales Airport. Contract decision for the range control should have been made by 20 Oct with a start date of 1 Apr 2015 and training commencing as early as Feb 2015.
By the way, this is the second time NATS have bid for Wattisham, the first being when the AAC were about to move in back in the late '90s. It was a joint bid with Cobham who were to operate ground services. I was on the assessment centre for the post of Man ATS but didn't get selected (spent a pleasant couple of days at the Crowne Plaza Heathrow though) and in any case, NATS didn't get the contract that time.
By the way, this is the second time NATS have bid for Wattisham, the first being when the AAC were about to move in back in the late '90s. It was a joint bid with Cobham who were to operate ground services. I was on the assessment centre for the post of Man ATS but didn't get selected (spent a pleasant couple of days at the Crowne Plaza Heathrow though) and in any case, NATS didn't get the contract that time.
Last edited by chevvron; 28th Oct 2014 at 00:28.
