New ATC situation in Spain
Hi there!
Iīm an Spanish ATCO currently working in one of the 5 ACC of our ATC network. Hope you donīt mind ifI keep my name concealed: donīt want to be sent to another city by force, or even risk been fired by my company.
This is now possible due to the decree-law published by our goverment yesterday friday. I thought that I could provide more information about our new working situation. Iīll just try to be straight, without adding my opinion. Iīll leave that to you.
Since yesterday we have to work 1750 a year, before it was 1200. Also, during our morning or evening services, our mandatory rest-time gets reduced from 33% to 25%, and in the nocturnal services from 50% to 33%. It means that not only we get a 550 hour increase every year, also the % of actual working time is been increased. We con be obliged to work overtime up to 80 hours more at the request of our company officials. One of my TWR colleagues told me this morning that in his case all this means he will have to work 22-23 days in one month, more than any Spanishd employee.
We now canīt discuss any direct order from the non-ATCO personel from AENA regarding procedures, open sectors or runways, LVP, sector capacity, etc ..., under the penalty of been punished (sent to another city or fired, as I already said). This didnīt start yesterday: in last december for example, an airport in the East of Spain remained open without a single instrument for app: ILS, the 2 VORīs, all U/S. AENA bosses knew this since 12:00, and didnīt update the NOTAM UNTIL 20:00. Iīve heard that my colleagues at the TACC and TWR responsible for the app had a lot of "fun" that day.
AENA will let us know or schedules 10 days before, not the old 90 days before we had until now, and even so, they can change those schedules the day before as they wish: for example, if I have to work tomorrow evening from 15:00 to 22:00, I can receive a call from AENA to tell me to go to work from 08:00 to 15:00. Mandatory.
Retirement has been suspended for the next 3 years: people over 52 could retire if they had already worked for more than 30 yrs. Now that is not possible: we call it "el corralito", like in Argentina, when the goverment didnīt allow you to take your money from banks.