PH-UKU
Being a little short of Annual Leave (despite all the time I get off), I just popped into PC World to buy one of these new "off the shelf" super ATSA replacement computers. I had planned to send it into work tomorrow and give myself a day off. Unfortunately, they'd sold out ( I think that Jocko and Greebson must be stockpiling them). Oh well.
I'm sure that someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the original plan for NERC to do away with ATSAs and replace them with electronic strips etc. And wasn't it the ATCOs (quite rightly in my opinion!) who wanted paper strips and ATSAs to go with them so that there was an effective back-up in the "unlikely" event of a computer failure. Maybe I'm out of touch a little but if the feeling really is that ATSAs can and should be replaced by "off the shelf" computers, who am I to argue.
With regards to your estimate of the cost of a London ATSA, don't forget that "admin costs" such as NI and pension costs will apply to the non NATS airfields as well. So you can double your figures for them. Many non NATS airfields also pay considerably less for ATCOs.
Isn't it about time that we called a truce now? The anti ATSA, ATCO and ATCE messages that have appeared on this forum have really only done so because of this years pay talks. Management have achieved their goal (with our help) and split us all into our own camps. Lets just get on with our jobs (whatever grades and payscales) and work together as we used to as a TEAM.
Last edited by Karoshi; 6th Sep 2002 at 20:56.