The unfortunate ethos of this company of thinking that cutting ATSA jobs is the best and easiest way to save money is very short sighted. By the very nature of the job we are there to ASSIST with anything that aids the controllers to carry out their job and are (from my own unit's perspective) very much an integral part of the TEAM. I think the recent adverse weather at UK airports has probably shown how valuable good ATSAs are. Only the other night I took about 30+ phone calls from various AO trying to work out when they could get the 25 odd DIVs back to where they needed to be for AM rotations, not to mention Royal Mail wanting their bags of post in the right depot, while also constantly correcting the bollocks that SAMOS was churning out (the sensors don't like the cold, great for a wx system). I'm sure most ATCO's would not want to be up there on their own doing all this as well as their primary task. It's normally only the bean counters that miss this point. But it's hardly surprising when senior HR people aren't really aware your job exists (as I found out when one was speaking to me in our TWR kitchen) "Are you an ATCO? A trainee? An ATSA ah yes one of them" (with an incredibly puzzled look) No wonder Operational staff has zero time for the empire that is Human Remains but that is a new thread altogether!