Originally Posted by
alfie1999
A Senior Aircraftsman can now earn up to £27,599
How does that compare to an ATSA1 in NATS? About the same except that the NATS employee isn't expected (or required) to risk their life in hot & sandy places.
and a Warrant Officer up to £44,588
Takes many years to reach that rank with a lot of associated hard work to climb the pyramid. Its not like being NATS staff with yearly spine point increases without lifting a finger in doing stuff over and above your day job.
A Flight Lieutenant can earn up to £43,002 without ever having to challenge a promotion board
And your average ATCO in NATS (bearing in mind that the number in area vastly outweighs aerodrome) earns a bit more (plus shift pay) without any promotion board either.
so I would challenge your assertion that the RAF isn't well paid.
When I left the RAF in Jan 2000 as a Flight Sergeant I earned £26845.75. I was an ATCO in LJAO, so fairly closely equivalent to a civil AC ATCO. I started work as an APS for NATS on £28,768 plus shift pay of nearly £4000 with no secondary duties, responsible for no one working for me, no possibility of being sent to dangerous places and no possibility of welding a couple of aircraft together. Thats my comparison.
If you can produce the average and median wage for NATS employees to back up your other claims i'd certainly be interested in having a look.
NATS pay isn't in the public domain and I can't be fagged to work them out.
The RAF complained about pay pre-79 but as you'll know Thatcher gave the armed forces massive pay rises and certainly by the late 80s and early 90s pay wasn't an issue of complaint with anybody I worked with.
I joined up in October 74 and am aware of the pay issues then. If you served with people who weren't complaining about pay you must have been very lucky!
Thanks for producing the stats to back up your response though
BD