Atco holidays

[atcsstudent]

Hi all!
I would like to ask a question about holidays to atcos from France, Uk, Germany, Italy.... etc....
In Spain we use to work 3 days on, 3 days off. And we had 27 days holiday, that is 9 times the 3 days on. But our ANSP says that we have 54 days of holiday because its 9 times 3 on and 3 off.
How does it work in other places? I've heard that in UK you work 6 on 4 off, and 28 days holiday. Do they count just on the days on or on the days off too?
How is it in other countries?
Thanks to you all!!!

[MancLad993]

From my experiences we work 6 on 4 off, 30 days of holiday. And we only use holiday on the days we should be at work. So we have 14 off from work for the "cost" of 6 days holiday.

Other employers may be different....

[conflict alert]

NZ
31 Annual Leave
5 (max) shift workers leave
11 (max) DIL's for Public Holidays (2 of our public holidays do not attract DIL's if they fall on a weekend)

Total 47

Rosters use a 2 on 1 off principle eg 4 on 2 off 6 on 3 off etc

Leave is for working days only so if you took the whole years entitlement at once you could be away from work for 70-71 days.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

In the UK only the days off are counted so in a 6 on, 4 off system you can take 6 days leave and have two weeks at home.

I don't know the precise details now as Public Holidays have changed but when I was working I actually attended my work place 179 days per year.

[ferris]

In the Middle East your days of leave do not 'accrue days off', like a day of work does. So, in a typical 10 day cycle where you would work 6 shifts, a sleep day and 3 days off, to get that cycle off as leave would require 10 days of leave. However, you do get at least 56 days of leave. Bid sensibly, and you can stretch it a long way.

[5milesbaby]

Not much has changed HD.

NATS get 28 days a/l a year that grows to 30 after 7 (?) years seniority and then to 33 days after 10 years. We also get 8 days extra for bank holidays irrespective of when they happen and what shift day it falls on each year. So basically, after 10 years, you have 41 days a/l. As HD says, take 6 days a/l and get 14 off, or 13 if you are unlucky enough to have to do what we call a slip day spin which makes the cycle 4 on, 1 off, 2 morning shifts and only 3 days off - but not many units have that pattern.

5mb

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Worst firm I worked for, for leave, was IAL. I had the opportunity of a fam flight back to UK so the manager agreed I could have 2 weeks off provided I arranged swaps with other controllers to cover absence. This I duly did. However, when we came home on "contract" leave after 2.5 years expecting to get 10 weeks leave.... I was told I only had 8!! The lousy Manager later denied any agreement he had with me regarding swaps! We never used to get any Public Holidays either..

[BrATCO]

2 days, 1 night, 3days off.

27 holidays per year, only on days on.
(Plus 9 days off in Brest ACC, to compensate for 15 nights that other French ACCs don't work).

Not more than 3 weeks(ish) in Summer, depending on staff's requests.
Not more than 4 weeks in a row anyway(otherwise, the license is not valid anymore)

[taekyon2]

Austria:

37 days of annual leave
44 days for those who work more than 50 night shifts per calender year (less than 15%)

Off days count as well (unfortunately). When you take leave you have to take a leave day for every calender day you are away. One leave day counts as 1/31st part (1/30th part respectively) of your normal monthly target hours, which isn't much. Thus taking three days of leave only earns you as many hours as working one long day shift. Consequently, when you take e.g. 14 leave days you only earn what would otherwise have been the minimum target hours during that period of time. If any overtime is scheduled during the same month (always the case) one usually has to work quite a bit more during the rest of the months to compensate for that. :ugh:

I envy all of you guys who only take leave for on-days. :D

[reportyourlevel]

I'm really struggling to get my head around this business of "days-off" being deducted from your leave quota. In these countries, what happens for office workers who normally have weekends off? Do they have a similar system (i.e. using 7 days for a week off, rather than 5)?

[ImnotanERIC]

2 days, 1 night, 3days off.

27 holidays per year, only on days on.
(Plus 9 days off in Brest ACC, to compensate for 15 nights that other French ACCs don't work).


You forgot about all the other days off where you "spit on our planes" which amounts to what? another 3 weeks off?

[Vercingetorix]

reportyourlevel
Not sure if it is still applicable but ATCO office workers at the UAE GCAA, if they took two weeks off, had to count in the weekend in the middle, i.e. not ten days leave but twelve days leave deducted.
Very odd system.
Cheers:ok:

[Lon More]

You forgot about all the other days off where you "spit on our planes" which amounts to what? another 3 weeks off?

Which sort of remark achieves what? Was your Mummy frightened by a Frenchman? Or are you just jealous that the French stand up for what they see as their rights instead of just flapping their lips?

[Vercingetorix]

Lon More
The Cuckoo is taken as the first sign of Spring
and
the French ATC system going on strike is taken as the first sign of Summer.
It's a given, although I'm not sure that ImnotanERIC's suggestion of an extra three weeks off is fully accurate.
However, many times it felt like it was three weeks.

Bonne chance:ok:

[ImnotanERIC]

Which sort of remark achieves what? Was your Mummy frightened by a Frenchman? Or are you just jealous that the French stand up for what they see as their rights instead of just flapping their lips?

Let's not cry about it though eh lonmore? want a tissue?

or did you just get up on the wrong side of bed this morning?

[taekyon2]

"I'm really struggling to get my head around this business of "days-off" being deducted from your leave quota. In these countries, what happens for office workers who normally have weekends off? Do they have a similar system (i.e. using 7 days for a week off, rather than 5)?"

Every employee in Austria is entitled to 5 weeks of leave per year. If you happen to work a regular office schedule (with weekends off), you get 25 leave days (5 times 5 weekdays = 25 weekdays = 5 weeks), and only take a leave day for every weekday you are away. E.g. if you take a Friday and a Monday off you get a long weekend with 4 days off the job.

If you happen to work shifts as we ATCOs do, you get 35 leave days (5 times 7 calender days = 35 calender days = 5 weeks), but have to take a leave day for every day you are away. We get a bonus leave of 2 more calender days because of some strange law that entitles us to them because we work in front of screens at night. All in all that makes up the above mentioned 37 calender days per year. If you take all those 37 days at once this gives you slightly more than 5 weeks of leave, which is just what every other employee in Austria is getting too. I hope this explains it.

Now I have a question to ask too. If you only take leave for what otherwise would have been on-days, how does the system balance out the monthly target hours every employee is normally supposed to work? E.g. if you take a leave day where you otherwise would have had to work an 8 hour shift, doesn't this put you at a disadvantage compared to a co-worker who would have had to work a 10+ hour shift? The way things work in Austrian ATC are obviously not ideal compared to other places, but one day of leave always counts for the same as it's simply worth a certain amount of hours that are add to your monthly target hours.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<Now I have a question to ask too. If you only take leave for what otherwise would have been on-days, how does the system balance out the monthly target hours every employee is normally supposed to work? E.g. if you take a leave day where you otherwise would have had to work an 8 hour shift, doesn't this put you at a disadvantage compared to a co-worker who would have had to work a 10+ hour shift?>>

I don't know what happens here now but when I worked there was no such thing as "target hours". We were supposed to work a certain number of hours per week but the actual hours worked were somewhat less. If I took a day off whilst my colleague was working, he might take a day off while I was working so it all balanced out...... but nobody worried about such things!

[BrATCO]

ImnotanERIC,You forgot about all the other days off where you "spit on our planes" which amounts to what? another 3 weeks off?
Nope ! Never done that !
I've never spat on a plane !.. In fact, yes I did once : I had to sneeze while refueling... But I wiped that quickly and nobody knew !

The unofficial days off you're refering to are history. Until last year, there were up to 10 days per year (15ish in 2009, but there were no flying planes to spit on either...). They were "given" by our supervisors, only during low traffic periods. And that was one day here, one night there,never weeks, as you seem to believe. When there was a sick leave, one could be called back to make a last minute replacement (I think it also exists in companies, more or less) and that was absolutely harmless to traffic.

There's been none of them for months now. And there will probably never be any again. That's part of the "stick to the rule" thing our hierarchy imposes us. The previous system was far more efficient : no sick leave at all (less than 0.2% per year) thanks to last minute replacements. The expected traffic was there, the expected number of ATCOs was on duty. It worked well, no surprise, no delay for "staffing" reasons.

Today, there were 3 sick leaves (5% of the ATCOs), nobody to replace them. That was 1,5 (in fact 2) sectors missing out of 17 (11%) with no advice and no backup solution.
Now, we're sick as any other human on Earth, we can't hide it anymore, and flow management is affected.
Those days off are history. Too bad, I think that was a win-win solution.
But, don't worry. Now, I'm a good boy and I work my hours. Everyone of them.


taekyon2
In France, we work 1430 h per year. This number was calculated out of : 32 hours per week (36 in summer, 28 in winter), 52.1785 weeks in a year, 27 holidays, 60.875 "6 days" rosters per year, blah, blah, blah...
The secret is that the target is yearly, not monthly. And days off are counted before you take them, at the beginning of each year.
Everything is "averaged" on a year. Much easier !
There can be a disadvantage for some once, but the others will suffer it the next time. Disadvantages are "averaged" too. I just have to trust my supervisors to check that(and check by myself, from time to time). So, I can take my holidays when I need them, regardless of who wins or loses time or money.

The slight problem is if I don't take my days off early enough and I can't take them afterwards, I will work up to 1670 hours in a year and my days off are lost : not paid, no way to take them later.
And overtime is not paid either. So I would work up to 1670 hours paid 1430...

[Lon More]

Let's not cry about it though eh lonmore? want a tissue?

or did you just get up on the wrong side of bed this morning?

No thank you, and no; now happily out to grass and don't have to worry about it any more.

What was much more annoying than the French going on strike was when London closed a sector due to "shortage of staff" (i.e. tea getting cold?) whilst the sectors all around it were still open. This often seemed to be the CLN sector so everything had to re-route through N. Sea and it was extremely annoying to watch them then turn the tfc direct towards EGLL and (presumably) through the closed sector. Or an EHAM Dep to EGCC having to route via DANDI for the same reason.

[BrATCO]

ATCstudent,
But our ANSP says that we have 54 days of holiday because its 9 times 3 on and 3 off.

A journalist in France wrote that we have a right to 81 holidays per year.
We really have 27 holidays per year, but in his journalist's mind, that's 9 times 3 days.
So, he calculated 3 days before, 3 days off, 3 days after, 9 times...
That's 81 days.

We also work 3 on, 3 off : that's 182 days per year.
Less 81 days off (in his distorted mind), we've got 101 working days per year less our worldwide known "clearances". So, he decided that we worked around 90 days a year.(note : he agrees with me regarding the number : 10-ish "clearances" per year)
And people believed him, government believed him, other journalists believed him. That was in September last year, when the witch hunt started.

In France, when people don't work on week-ends, they don't say : "I've got 5 weeks of holidays plus 104 days off and a few bank days.", do they ?:ugh:They don't have to work during weekends, so they just don't go to work. No one counts that ! (except our ANSPs and some journalists, it seems)

Two or tree weeks ago, I also discovered in the same paper that we earn 8000€ plus bonus per month... No ATCO earns that in France. Maybe bonus included, just before retirement. Not sure.
Anyway, that's what he wrote and once more, he was believed...

[rab-k]

NATS (UK) Oceanic work 6 on, 1 sleep, 3 off.

We do constant MMAANN therefore our day 7 is always a sleep day rather than (potentially) a day off.

As said elsewhere, NATS operate 28/30/33 days annual leave, depending upon length of service, plus 8 days public holidays.

Therefore 6 days of annual leave results in 14 days away from the farm.

However, the company also has 3 annual 'claw-back' days which can be used to bring staff in for training events on what would normally be a day off.

[kontrolor]

SI > 6/4, 26+ days of vacation (depends on many factors), vacations are not callendar days, but working days, meaning 12 days of vacations actually can mean 20 days off (4 before and 4 after the "shift")

[5milesbaby]

rab-k: have your "claw back" days not been added to your DIL count yet? Down here we now start each new leave year with a minus 3 DIL count so it has potential for someone to need to work an extra few months after retirement to make up any deficit.......

Time to volunteer for a few DIL accruement exercises :ouch: