Originally Posted by
Pat42
In reply to the original poster;
I had heard rumour that ATSA roles within Swanwick were being axed, I believe with the eventual goal of all such posts being eliminated. As I understand it this is more to do with the ATSA role becoming less necessary due to new technology than it is to do with the economic climate.
The numbers are being reduced at both Swanwick (iFACTS and EFD) and Prestwick (EFD) as technology removes the requirement to take printed paper strips out of a printer, load them into a plastic holder and place them in front of a controller, this accounts for very roughly 60% of the time spent working as support staff on a sector. It doesn't remove any of the other tasks which are vital to the running a sector and of an Ops room, it will tend to increase skills as the support staff will be required to operate the new technology in addition to doing what they've always done.
There is also an agreement between management and unions (on the company intranet) that there will be no compulsory redundancies without something serious happening to the economy.
BD