A lot of justified negative resentment going on here... But I believe we live in a cause and effect universe, so why then is ASA going in this bizarre staff-destroying direction ?
It is not enough for me to just constantly attack TFN and management, without taking a more "big picture" look at the ATC business and trying to actually understand why tf they make (or don't make) the decisions they do...
Where is ATC going ? Tower, approach, enroute ? A global user pays service. Automation ? Larger trans-national sectors ? De-skilling or re-skilling ? Therefore why invest in more staff, when the plan might be to just "re-deploy" existing assets more efficiently once the technology becomes viable ?
Maybe ASA is being driven on purpose to such a low-resourced (read cheap) and high-liability (read TIBA) organisation, that the government/board of directors are just getting ready to sell it (or parts of it) off to... the most convenient buyer ? FAA? Airways? Airline consortiums ? Given a Qantas/Singapore merger for sure it would be an affordable consideration.
I heard recently that Qantas (and others) might have given ASA a vote of no confidence in their service delivery (due TIBA), and so are demanding a more reliable provider to at least do, say the Ocean airspace. In response to this massive potential loss of revenue, ASA has looked at the books and perhaps realised that TAAATS cannot provide a competitive product anymore.
Without SDE, without any realised efficiencies, the ASA product has lost it's edge in the market. Apparently Version 13 has been axed as the FPCP (and ongoing modifications) does not justify the return on investment anymore. Better yet - TAAATS might just have to be scrapped in toto, and either a more competitive off-the-shelf product implemented ASAP just to keep the bucks rolling in...
Ofcourse the government will not want to let that revenue stream go, but due to the total corporatisation of it's assets, may not have a choice if the users demand a more sustainable long-term service. The US have just committed billions to upgrade their systems, and so perhaps a bit of airspace re-shuffling would be on the cards...
As for staff going overseas - well perhaps that is all just a part of the grand plan anyway !!
There's (got to be) a reason for everything
