flower, you miss the point.
This isn't about individuals. It is about corporate commercial interests versus safety. And the safety cannot easily be measured because it is notionally a 'very safe system' where predictions of the next bad thing are difficult.
It was a system borne out of years of steady incremental change overseen by what was primarily a safety regulator. Now it is a system in private hands with an economic regulator who wears at least two hats in this scenario, neither of which are noticeably respected in such a low cost driven market environment.
Individually, you long term ATCOs haven't changed with the low cost market except in crude terms of survival of the fittest. You continue to enjoy a defined benefit pension still embedded in the CAA's scheme which costs well in excess of 30% of your salaries, much of which is still 'passed through' to the taxpayer I think for NERL at least, or is it the airlines which pick up the tab - I haven't quite got my head round it - but I can see that AG don't much go a bundle on it! You have good union representation (which
is a good thing) but your union is your protector, not your regulator.
The majority of the pilots flying the aircraft in your care now enjoy no such high cost employment benefits, no pensions in many cases, even no union.
So you feel special. You feel loyal to what you perceive essentially to be a good employment package and a great job. You are special. You feel special enough to have the power as a group not to be pushed around. But how do you as a group decide when it is safe to accept erosion of separation standards without conspicuous extra support in terms of technological investment and proper manning and continuation training? Your union is usually the last to respond not the first.
Why is one of the biggest departments in your company called the Human Factors department? There's more of them now than of you operational guys I think? Perhaps they got the human risk down to such a fine art that you dare pit your skill against the next erosion of separation or manning levels on their say so after a questionnaire session or two?
And whose idea was that prop on the rocks outside your new front door at Swanwick? I don't like the look of it
PS Glad to here that replays aren't a problem Roffa
That means if you have the data, you don't have to be involved to have a valid hindsight opinion I take it?