controllers can earn 350,000 euros ($470,000; £297,000)

[juniour jetset]

from the BBC article BBC News - Striking Spain air traffic controllers return to work (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11918008)

Being a bit of an armchair Economist and specificaly thinking about income distribution, this amount of money seems very high for this job? maybe the Big cheese/head of ops would get this type of pay? but do many peole in the industry ever earn near this?

can anybody out there shine some light on ATC salaries, for different countries please.

Many Tks

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

UK... operational controllers with many years experience can earn around £80,000 at top units, otherwise considerably less. Supervisory posts have higher salaries.

Compare this with what a UK B747 Captain earns (including allowances) and you'll see that ATCOs do not earn mega-bucks.

[MPN11]

UK Military controllers realistically peak around £45k-£55k ... and get sent to warry places as well, where they might die.

Most are on £30k-£40k, which is about the same as many cabin crew on BA.

Hmmm ... shouldn't have joined if I couldn't take a joke. ;)

[warsteiner888]

UK Mil controllers earn £45 - £55 K typically. They also get subsidised accomodation, free sports facilities, free dental, free medical and an excellent non contributary pension scheme. Not to mention cheap food (how many jobs can you get 3 square meals every day for under a fiver). Other perks aswell such as cheap booze in the mess (Have to be a member of the officer or sgt's mess to control).

They also get the privalige of parade practice, GDT, guard duty and importantly of all - free clothes for work (usually blue or grey in colour).

Not to mention a tax free lump sum on leaving, 21/2k a year towards personal training every year for 3 years.

Best of all, the majority get the magnificent honour of quickly raising their right hand to the forehead (in an expeditious manner) to pay homage whenever they come across a demi god who has attended a course only for the best/elite at the greatest military academy ever conceived - Cranwell. A place where the some of the greatest military minds have been trained such as :

....................................I will have to get back to you on that one, although I did hear that one graduate from Cranwell won a game of Risk once!

By the way I am a Uk civil controller who has worked with Mil controllers so I know the gossip. At least I think I do.

Anyway back to my Warsteiner, a beer I was introduced to by a SNCO controller who knew his stuff.

[juniour jetset]

thanks for your replys so far.. do you think this figure quoted by BBC is very much sensational journalism? or are Spanish ATC's paid vastly more than their European counterparts

the figure to me seems way out of whack

[millerman]

Junior Jetset,
I have heard about these figures before when talking about Spanish ATCOs but as I understand it, they have a very good overtime deal. But they have to work a lot of overtime, which bumps up their salary.
Also what you have to remember is that these are the "headline" figures and most will be on considerably less.
Their government has negotiated these deals in the past and had no problems with it, but now it is not politically 'acceptable' they have made them public and decided to change the rules and conditions of employment. Even though they agreed with it in the first place !!!
It is a very interesting situation:\

[MPN11]

Royal Air Force Pay Scales - Armed Forces - RAF Officers Pay Rates - Other Ranks Pay Rates (http://www.armedforces.co.uk/rafpayscales.htm)

The majority of controllers are flying officers/flight lieutenants ... that's £30k-£45k. ;)

There are many other aspects, including those you mentioned ... and of course being posted somewhere new every 2 1/2 years whether you like it or not.

[On the beach]

junior jetset

can anybody out there shine some light on ATC salaries, for different countries please.

It's not quite as simple as that, I'm afraid, because what I think you are looking for, a comparison of salaries can be very misleading.

A low salary in a country with a low cost of living could give you an equally good living as someone living where you live.

Also, allowances and perks are generally not included in salary. Then you have to convert an overseas salary to your own currency to get a true comparison.

To give you a couple of examples, if you had worked for Eurocontrol a few years ago you would have been entitled to purchase a tax-free car every year, if you were French. So, if you treated yourself to a top of the range car every year it would have been quite a saving.

If you work in the Middle East you generally don't pay any tax, so you need to add your local tax rate to that to compare. Many Middle East packages also include free accommodation and free utility bills. These can add up to quite substantial outgoings if you have to pay them yourself out of your salary.

My own situation in my last ATC outfit, if you include all allowances, meant that to earn the same in my home country I would have needed to earn in the region of €360,000, but my salary was nowhere near that sum and with changing exchange rates would now be substantially lower. Also, the cost of living was substantially higher than my home country.

You need to compare total packages rather than just salary to get a meaningful comparison.

[BeT]

I take €6800 NET pcm.

I am single & have no kids, therefore miss out on some of the tax breaks and extra allowances.

I am fully qualified for about 24 months.

Married with kids and on the job for 10+yrs and id be taking €10k per month easy.

Nothing like the Spanish figures, but not bad either. Then again compare it to say a banker or a top surgeon or dare I say it a footballer and its peanuts.

Im surprised the NATS salaries are so low, do they have any problems with staff retention?

€6800 NET = approx 110k GBP gross - substantially more than what a UK controller takes.:\

[5milesbaby]

BeT - that also smells like you have to put up with 45 degree heat for 3 months a year and have a rather harsh culture to contend with. Paid in Dirhams I guess?

[BeT]

God no,

Its rather cold and snowy here at the moment.

Im a 3hr train ride from the UK.

[Lon More]

if you had worked for Eurocontrol a few years ago you would have been entitled to purchase a tax-free car every year, if you were French. So, if you treated yourself to a top of the range car every year it would have been quite a saving.


WRONG.


In the beginning it was a mice perk but only when established and working in Brussel, so up to 1974. After the move to Maastricht there was nothing for several years but now newly joined staff are allowed one however it has to be imported into the country of residence, taxes paid, before it can be sold on.

Of course the drones in Brussel have managed to retain the perk for themselves hence the EURO plates you may see around there

[Surferboy]

@ BeT: Expect any recruitment for already licensed ATCO's at Maastricht shortly? :cool: I'm in the same climate, but earn considerably less.

About 7 months since my last checkout, single and no kids gives me a tad more than half you've got..about 3800 Euro's net.

[Quintilian]

Norway.

71k Euros yearly before taxes. (60k GBP)

[juniour jetset]

Thanks again to all for the response.

In today's article BBC News - Britons warned to expect Spain flight strike delays (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11920841)

500,000 euros is mentioned.

"The sense I'm getting is that people are incredibly frustrated here. They understand the importance of tourism to the economy. It turns out some of these people on strike earn 500,000 euros (£424) a year, which is more than the UK prime minister."

I can't help but think both the journalists and the peole being quoted are misinformed or is it me?

I base this on Economic understanding on wage/employment reward theory -

Why would they, the Spanish Government have to pay so much for ATC's ?

Surely there can't be a problem in finding people who want to work in this job and have the appitude to do it.

Training is easily provided and not as exspensive like gaining an ATPL - although I do apprecaite the time to train is similar or longer.

Therefore the supply of candidates is not a problem, and thus this sgould drive down teh reward you have to pay for the labour.

Or maybe the figures are true and this is one of the reason's why Spain is in so much debt as they overpay. Surely with 20% unemployed there is scope to train up the young and keen who who could do the job at a fraction of the coast akin to Ryanair FOs

[MPN11]

"On The Beach" makes a fair point about comparing different tax regimes and cost of living. However, I think most people here are capable of understanding that out themselves.

May I suggest we just quote "Annual Gross" salary? ... at least then we have one point of reference. Otherwise it gets incredibly complicated.


BTW, RAF [and indeed all UK military] pay is reduced from what it should be [as a strict civilian comparison] to recognise the benefits received ... if I can remember what they might have been. ;)

My pension is quite nice, but that has to cover me from age 55 until death; my civil colleagues can soldier on to 65, because they don't have to be fit enough to go to war :cool:

[Lord Spandex Masher]

In the beginning it was a mice perk but only when established and working in Brussel

I often wondered what the squeaking was when you transmitted, I put it down to your chairs needing a bit of oil. But now we know!:E

[Del Prado]

Training ATCOs costs a lot, usually paid up front by the ANSPs.
AENA found it cheaper to pay very generous overtime rates rather than employ and train the correct amount of staff. So much so that Spanish ATCOs were earning large salaries ( but still not the figures bandied about in the media).

The Spanish government want to privitise AENA so they briefed media with exagerated rates of pay while simultaneously increasing the hours worked by about 40% and capped salaries. All this with no negotiation.

At least that's my understanding of it.




As far as UK salaries go HD is on the money in post #2

[Surferboy]

@MPN11: I could quote my Anual gross, but with taxes up to 52% in Holland that would give quite a distorted view of reality. Monthly net. would be much more interesting.

[Sam Asama]

Surferboy makes the most important point. (See the related Serco thread...)

Sam

[MPN11]

Fair point, monthly net ... I own a calculator. ;)

Now to look at my old payslips ... :}

[anotherthing]

MPN11

My pension is quite nice, but that has to cover me from age 55 until death; my civil colleagues can soldier on to 65, because they don't have to be fit enough to go to warI'm ex-mil, now civvy. I can honestly say that proportionally, there are more chubsters amongst the Active Mil ATCO/ATSA population than there are amongst the civvy ones. In fact some of the mil people I see milling (no pun intended) around my workplace are beyond being unfit and are a disgrace to their uniform (even if it is a hand me down from the AA) :p.

The Annual Fitness Test is and always has been a joke, especially when allowances for age etc are appplied.

That's not to say that I don't think the Mil people deserve the 'perks' they get, but don't use general fitness as part of your argument - it is a non starter :ok:

[millerman]

@Junior Jetset - you really are a troll!

Training is easily provided and not as exspensive like gaining an ATPL - although I do apprecaite the time to train is similar or longer.

The latest cost estimate for training a fully rated ATCO at my unit is €750,000 and takes over 2 years :eek: Since when has an ATPL cost that?

Surely with 20% unemployed there is scope to train up the young and keen who who could do the job at a fraction of the coast akin to Ryanair FOs

You have completely missed the point there as well.Unlike an ATPL where if you throw enough money at it and resit enough exams most people will pass. Not just anyone can do the job of an ATCO, there is some innate ability that is very hard to spot:confused:
Millions of Euros have been spent developing selection tests and yet there are still 50% failure rates. 100% success rate from selection test are the holy grail for recruitment and ANSPs would love to drag people off the street (or from the dole queue) and train them up. I'm sure Mr o'Leary would be a lot happier as well;)

A I said in my previous post the situation in Spain is completely manufactured by the government. They were very happy with the situation before the crisis paying overtime rather than training costs. But as soon as they realised how much they were paying and wanted to privatise they started changing the rules and whinging like little brats.
Don't get me wrong I am not fully in favour of the controllers in Spain, their union has also a lot to answer for, but the government is acting like a dictatorship and not telling the whole truth :oh:

[MPN11]

@ anotherthing ... I have no doubt you are right, and sadly it was ever thus!! ;)

However, I addressed the general principle, rather than the reality. And I understand that the steady flow of ATCOs to a certain sandy place involves a fair degree of pre-deployment fitness training.

[Jagohu]

For Eurocontrol MASUAC you can find the basic salaries here:
EUROCONTROL - Frequently Asked Questions on Air Traffic Controller Careers (http://www.eurocontrol.int/muac/public/standard_page/atco_careers_FAQ.html#5)

Single expat:
Air traffic controller: € 4232
Working shifts entitles staff to payment of a flat-rate shift allowance which is set at € 1425 for those working a 24/7 shift

Lon More: now you're only entitled for a tax-free car if you actually reside in the Netherlands - if you live in Belgium/Germany you don't have this option.

Surferboy: I don't think there's gonna be any conversion training in Maastricht anytime soon - since the last one was (again) not too successful - many of those guys couldn't finish the training, so I seriously doubt there will be an other one for a few years at least...

[olster]

Take a deep breath and rise to the bait: how on earth can it cost 750,000 euros to train an ATCO? Certainly won't dispute that it takes a clever chap/ess to do the job but that level of investment,really ? One could do an ATPL in a Eurofighter for half the cost ( that's a joke btw ).

[Scapa]

You have completely missed the point there as well.Unlike an ATPL where if you throw enough money at it and resit enough exams most people will pass. Not just anyone can do the job of an ATCO, there is some innate ability that is very hard to spot

Not wanting to turn this thread into FC vs ATCO but I have to disagree with the above.

I have seen many people fail initial assessment and get nowhere near an ATPL course. You need very similar skills, capacity, ability to multi-task as well as good co-ordination etc. Even if you do as you say and chuck money at it until you pass nobody will hire you with the exam pass rate. 100k (of your own hard cash) not very well spend and very few if any do that.

p.s. pass rate at oxford for the assessment is about 50% i believe.

[max1]

Is there more than 12 months( for payments) in the year in Europe though?

[Lon More]

Olster I can't access the actual figures as I'm now out of the circuit but believe the €750000 would be accurate.
Take into account the costs of selection - paper sort, transport, accommodation, the selection tests and the board. After that a first-class medicaland thousands of applicants are whittled down to a couple of hundred.
From them'the selected few, usually 15, then begin an intensive course at IANS or Toulouse or Langen.
Add in the cost of the physical plant (buildings, simulators etc.) The costs of staff (instructors aren't cheap. Even though a lot of the time not spent instructing, preparing instruction material, etc., they may be sitting around)
Factor into this the costs of those who fail/withdraw from training at this stage.
Assuming they pass (usually about 12, though it has been as low as 5 - which caused a major re-think) and go onto an operational unit this starts all over again. Lectures in unit specific practices, letters of agreement, then back into a simulator to familiarise them with the airspace they will be controlling and the specific equipment they will be using (€ millions for the sim. which might have an operational life of 10 years but only be used for 3 -400 hundred students) Each training position on our sim. required one instructor (usually a training officer or experienced controller (who will also have attended specialist courses before starting as a coach), two "pilots" to fly the blips (ours were temps. to keep costs down) a controller, as co-ordination partner (he sat with the pilots and could throw in the occasional spanner) plus the Sim. Boss (full time and responsible for keeping everything working) Throw in the costs of preparing the traffic samples and wrting the program up.
Should they get through this and make it to the Ops. Room the preferred method is one-on-one, so for every student all the costs of one controller have to be added as he is no longer generally available to perform duties. Also each team will have a Training Officer watching over progress, or lack of it, and preparing progress reports. Again. at this stage, but only after a lot of discussion, change of team/OJT Coach, it is possible to fail right up to the last Validation Check-out.

Don't forget, when a trainee fails it is normally a 100% loss of all the investment made in him, although it is sometimes possible that he finds employment in another part of the organisation.There is no possibility of going back and trying again, even with another provider as they will be looking into the student's background. Failing the ATPL along the way still would leave the student with possibly CPL/twin/IR ratings so still with a (limited) job market and the possibility to re-sit the ATPL at a later date.

PS Millerman Junior Jetset and LH2. troll twins?

[olster]

ok -I buy it -not literally of course but a convincing and cogent explanation.Interesting.Cheers.

[Surferboy]

@Jagohu:

Interesting, afaik everyone that ever went down south to Limburg from the ANSP where I work did make it. Vice versa as well I believe. Too bad, for almost twice the amount of my current net salary I would be tempted. :E (Eventhough Maastricht truly isn't the best part of Holland :})

[BeT]

I believe the working style, attitude and training methodology of LVNL and MUAC are broadly similar and certainly 'gel' together well.

It shouldnt really be a surprise that jumping ship from one to the other works quite well :)

It doesnt go smoothly for every experienced conversion recruit though, as several have recently found out.

[LMX]

Comparing controllers and pilots is like comparing apples and oranges. The required skill sets are quite different, but perhaps more importantly in ATC there are not as many chances as there are on the pilot side. If you don't get an ATC job you can't just keep your licence current and look around for other ATC jobs!

I was on one of those courses mentioned by Lon More where only 5 made it through the college (sadly I was one of the 7 who didn't make it in my course). Halfway through the course we were 8 students left. I also have a CPL and am now doing the ME/IR (all state-sponsored, given to 25 students each year, so there is competition, similar to the ATC selections). All 25 of us are still here, and I expect all of us to pass the CAA check flight as well. If the training and exam philosophy in pilot training would be similar to ATC training though, I suspect we would have a much higher failure rate. In my experience, in pilot training it's recognized that nobody performs perfectly all of the time, maybe not even on the check flight, but one mistake here or there doesn't equal failure, unless it's a major screw-up. Even if it is, the pilot can always fly the check flight again.

Don't forget, when a trainee fails it is normally a 100% loss of all the investment made in him, although it is sometimes possible that he finds employment in another part of the organisation.There is no possibility of going back and trying again, even with another provider as they will be looking into the student's background. Failing the ATPL along the way still would leave the student with possibly CPL/twin/IR ratings so still with a (limited) job market and the possibility to re-sit the ATPL at a later date.

In ATC you are continually in training until you validate. If you don't make it to validation at your unit for whatever reason, it's normally very difficult to find somewhere else to finish your training and start your ATC career.

For pilots, I'd say the worry is not the training or "failing the ATPL", but finding your first job. The "student" with CPL/IR/ME is not really a student but a fully licensed pilot, but will possibly find it just as hard to find a job as it is for the not-yet-validated ATC dropout.

To make a (poor) ATC analogy of it, it would be like training for TWR at the college, and then sending your CV to every airport, maybe working as an AFISO and going in the TWR sim once a year to keep your ADV rating current. Then you realise that an ADV rating on its own will get you nowhere, so you buy an ADI rating. Then if you're lucky enough to get that TWR job, with a few years experience you might have a chance on an APP job, but of course you would have to pay for the APS rating yourself...

[MPN11]

@ Lon More ... a very fair call on the training bill, albeit from the Civ side. The same applies to UK Mil ATC ... expensive simulators at the School, large number of staff, and then On-Job Training [OJT] at the Units. In the Mil case it's worse, as a posting every 2 1/2 years means re-validation at a new Unit [with the same manpower bill for training until the individual is fully validated]. Even the best people can take 3 months to work through a well-run local system.

My very last task before I retired was to produce a paper identifying ways of 'efficiencising' OJT ... it's a huge bill. I have no idea whether any of it was implemented, of course, but it looked good to me. ;)

[juniour jetset]

I'll take the Troll bashing on the chin as I somewhat deserve it. I openly admit that I am naive in this area, but am gratefull for all the posts that have helped me understand better this industry and the economic structure of it.

[andrijander]

Max-1

Nope, you may get a bit of compensation for travelling back home every year, plus an extra day holidays or more (depending on your place of origin). You can check that online.

Surferboy

Indeed, it isn't. Personally, I grew up in an island and miss the sea terribly. And the canals and the Maas just don't cut it.

[Surferboy]

Can imagine, even more so if you were accustomed to a warmer climate than the current Dutch one. :bored: But you are renumerated quite well if you compare to other ANSP's in Northern Europe, so that could make up a bit for the scenery!:)

[LH2]

Millerman Junior Jetset and LH2. troll twins?

:confused: Is that LH2 as in my handle? What do I have to do with any of this? Or "trolling" as you call it? :rolleyes:

Is that anything to do with my asking (http://www.pprune.org/atc-issues/416995-spanish-atc-47.html#post6103884) some pertinent questions, which you apparently chose to ignore, and subsequently went on to dismiss (http://www.pprune.org/atc-issues/416995-spanish-atc-49.html#post6105852) an entire thread?

Then you show up on another thread where, as far as I can tell, nothing of substance is being discussed, in order to contribute exactly what? Some out of date trivia?

"More than just an ATCO" you say? Well for a start you are not even an ATCO anymore: you have retired. Meanwhile, some of us do have something at stake here which is why we take an interest. We may disagree with other people as we do, but as long as it's all kept civil and intelligent, we're bound to learn something.

One goes and politely asks someone who seems knowledgeable a sincere inquisitive question; not only they do not reply (which is fine) but then they go calling you a troll elsewhere (which is not fine). One has to wonder sometimes. :hmm:

Btw, I have no idea who Junior whatever is, and Millerman is in my ignore list, and so are you from this moment, ergo don't bother replying--you had your chance a while back.

Apologies for the rant everyone else :cool:

[millerman]

LH2
What have I done to upset you? :{
All I have done is answer someone elses post as I see fit ! I had never even heard of you before ! PMSL :D

[MPN11]

A bad case of Civil ATCO "Handbags at Dawn" ... come on guys :=

[andrijander]

Can imagine, even more so if you were accustomed to a warmer climate than the current Dutch one. But you are renumerated quite well if you compare to other ANSP's in Northern Europe, so that could make up a bit for the scenery!

I ain't complaining. I'd rather work for money and choose to buy bananas than working in a banana republic and get them for free. But it could be warmer... :p




Going back to the thread title. Get real. Controllers in Spain aren't making that kind of money. Perhaps before february, when they got "royaldecreed"? Perhaps, but doubtful. And yes, it is their word against that of a Minister. But then politicians don't lie. :}
In any case they aren't there now. By far AFAIK. Word of mouth has them peaking at 100k after tax at the highest paid. As low as 20-25k in small towers. All that is after tax, per year.

[Lon More]

A bad case of Civil ATCO "Handbags at Dawn" ... come on guys

I don't think LH2 is employed in aviation in any way, let alone as a controller. I asked him for his background so better to be able to understand his posts on anothr thread without any answer.
Two posters, similar styles, it's happened before.

[Del Prado]

http://www.pprune.org/search.php?searchid=7144474

here's some of his previous posts LM, in case you want to check his aviation credentials.

;)

[5milesbaby]

That link doesn't work Del :ouch:

[MPN11]

Try this one ... ATC Failure (http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/12/08/rudolph-the-red-faced-reindeer/) ;)

[Lon More]

MPN11, very funny and totally suited to JB; however I suspect the page contents may have changed

v/QqaxekD9Ot0?fs=1&amp;hl=nl_NL"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QqaxekD9Ot0?fs=1&amp;hl=nl_NL" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

[MPN11]

I tried ... I'm no expert with this technical stuff! ;)