Hempy you really think the training finishes at the end of the supposed $300,000 course they give you? The training as an Air Traffic Controller should never stop, and is an ongoing constant process. By leaving Australia and going to a much busier, intense part of the world ATC wise, the individuals are accelerating that training process. From a personal point of view, in Australia I would never be issuing NOTAMS, grounding unairworthy aircraft, filing incident reports, and sequencing a trail of 20 or 30 aircraft with no help from a FLOW or any FLOW tools(ie. deciding the sequence myself and achieving it myself) all in one shift. There are valid arguments to say we shouldn't be doing that here either, but the fact remains we are, and so as a result of that, we are more experienced than our fellow controllers of the same years experience who stayed back in Australia.
If you look at this from AirServices point of view, yes they have spent money initially training us up, and in return we have given at least 5 years service before leaving. But what they are getting back by reemploying us on a salary that recognises our experience and ability, is not only a controller that has that original training and 5 years experience, but also a lot of qualifications and training that they didn't have to pay for. They get a controller who has been on an incident investigation course, a Centre Supervisor course, a Crtical Incident Stress Management course, and someone who has backed those courses up with extensive practical experience in each of those areas. I would say from Airservices point of view, they should be rubbing there hands together at the prospect of getting a freebie such as this.
As Ferris said we are not necessarily expecting more money, but we are expecting to be paid a salary that recognises our knowledge and experience. If that is hard for the guys who stayed in Oz to swallow, well stiff.
Last edited by AirNoServicesAustralia; 3rd Nov 2006 at 02:56.