Spanish ATC

[LH2]

Originally Posted by aldegar

First news about the italian agreement. Have no information about it, but it would be really nice if it involved some kind of exchange... italian ATCOs come to Spain and we are allowed to go and replace them in Italy!

Actually, the idea is not bad. I agree that that could be a mutually beneficial situation.

[pdcta]

it would be really nice if it involved some kind of exchange... italian ATCOs come to Spain and we are allowed to go and replace them in Italy

It would be really great! I mean... short period of exchange (2 to 3 years) would be really formative for everybody: for you and for the hosting unit/controllers.
And initially... to be employed in the Upper Airspace's sectors won't be a problem as the national language can be easily avoided, there. (At the moment not in the terminal due to the VFR traffic).

[BrATCO]

There might be issues with applying if they insist on level 4 Spanish or some such (which they will, given the political implications in such a Jacobin country).

I hope they will !
Not for political or Jacobin reasons : for safety reasons.

Or you would have to include in the martial law that Spanish pilots who fly only in Spain and don't speak technical English will be grounded.

Haven't you read any of the threads about multiple languages on the frenquency ? Would you fly in a single manned airspace where the CONTROLLER wouldn't understand the situation ?

Not talking about normal situation. Sometimes, VFRs get lost...

[SINGAPURCANAC]

sorry for stupid question,but what is the point if it happen according to union idea?
You have 100 atcos-and it is not enough
Than you will send 5 people to other country,and they will send 5 people to your centers.
and at the end of the day you will have again 100 atcos.

Actually you will not have 100 atcos.
There will be 95 qualified plus 5 on ojt.
So if you are understuffed with 100 atcos, what is the name for situation when you have 95 plus 5.
Understuffed with increased costs,because transfers aren't for free.Someone has to pay tickets,and other costs relating to "exchange programs"(hotel,transportation, familiarization period,plus increased need for free days....)

It won't happen like this.
they will "exchange" a few people just to "break ice" than they will introduce bunch of other atcos.

Because you need more people for less money.

Insted of paying one atco average 20 000 eurs per month,they will deploy six average atcos for 3000 eur per month.
guess who will take the difference.

[aldegar]

I was just giving some thoughts to this new and unknown italian agreement and I was wondering:

- How many italian ATCOs are they recruiting? Could it be 175? (any italian that can answer this?). Not long ago Mr. Lema said in the media they didn't need more ATCOs. However, now that 175 spanish ATCOs are being judged and are facing 8 to 10 years of prison, all of the sudden we find out that they are recruiting italian ATCOs... Will the spanish government speed up the trials and start sending spanish ATCOs to prison as soon as they start getting fresh foreign replacements?

- Considering we are now all militarized, and somehow feeling it's not going to be the last time, can foreign ATCOs working in Spain be also militarized in the future? The decree militarized ALL air traffic controllers working in Spain, but didn't say anything about nationalities... interesting issue.

[Shadowrun]

have been trying to anihilate us for more than one year now. They've issued 5 decrees and 2 laws to change our working conditions because they don't want to negotiate a new agreement with us.

Minister of Public Works (Pepe Blanco) said ATCO's union pulled government's leg as they didn't accept any new terms&conditions. So, ther should have been at least one negotiation.

[deci]

How many italian ATCOs are they recruiting? Could it be 175? (any italian that can answer this?)

175? Impossible.
If I remember correctly 15/20 was the maximum number of ACC controllers ENAV granted to DFS last year so I guess it could be not more than 15/20 people as well (in the official document I read is requested ATC people from ACC only).
... by the way I hope we'll be ZERO italian ATC'os answering to this "strange request"..
suerte

[spanishatco45]

Hi LH2, thanks for the compliments. Just to satisfy your curiosity, I’m not a union representative, just an atco. By the way, what sources of knowledge are you drinking from to state all that **** about the Union? Do you know what the Union was one year ago and what it is nowadays? If you tell us what you exactly know and what your sources are, I can talk to you, otherwise I’ll assume you’re just intoxicating the forum. Do you work for SERCO or any of those companies supposedly taking care of our towers in the near future? I told you who I am, you tell us who you are. The problem is Aena owes a hell of a lot of money (13.000.000.000 €) yes, you read well: thirteen thousand million euros, mainly to your British banks, as you know well. They built dozens of loss-making airports only to make the construction companies, like Construcciones San José, a little richer (Oh, what a surprising coincidence, Juan Ignacio Lema, AENA’s current president was the President of Construcciones San José until 2 days before taking over in AENA!!!!!!!), and now they want to get out of this hell at the expense of all AENA’s workers, not only of the controllers. Lema said the other day they don’t need any more controllers and he is looking for them behind our backs… He knows how many applications DFS has received from Spanish ATCOS in the past few months (nearly all of them rejected). If he wants to get rid of us, why doesn’t he let us go? We’d be pleased to. He doesn’t know what he wants himself, I see him a little desperate. He should go and rest a little bit, the same as you LH2 the troll.

[Lon More]

When are the next elections scheduled in Spain?

[pdcta]

...by the way I hope we'll be ZERO italian ATC'os answering to this "strange request"...

They have an agreement. I think that it means that if 0 ATCOs will apply they will brush up someone licence to send there support. They cannot promise help and after that told them "sorry cannot help you anymore". International public relations cannot admit this, I think. Am I wrong?!
Different was if the company denied since the beginning the help request. "Sorry understaffed too..." was a nice option (and it's the real truth).

[aldegar]

When are the next elections scheduled in Spain?

March 2012.

... by the way I hope we'll be ZERO italian ATC'os answering to this "strange request"..
suerte

Thanks

[BrATCO]

aldegar,

can foreign ATCOs working in Spain be also militarized in the future?

No way, unless they've got Spanish nationality too. Or Italian Minister of Economical War decides they are forced to work for Spain under Spanish military rules...

pdcta,

It would be really great! I mean... short period of exchange (2 to 3 years)

Would have been great in the 70's-80's, when everything in European aviation wasn't all about "reaping the benefits", as says LH2.
2 or 3 years would be absolutely cost ineffective.
Months to get a qualification one way, months to get again the previous qualification, back to home-country... If the place is still vacated...
Months paying a useless controller ?
Plus the cost of hiring new controllers to replace the ones who leave. (hence the possibility that the place is not available anymore when the controller wants to get back home)

I think there would be a line in the contract to force controllers stay at least 10 years. If ever they want to leave before, let them give the whole money back (except a part which represents the minimum salary in the country for the period). This is the kind of contract we sign here before starting training.

As said here and there, training is very expensive. Could be wise (at last) to consider it as an investment instead of this "strike breaking" method.

[LH2]

Originally Posted by BrATCO

I hope they will !
Not for political or Jacobin reasons : for safety reasons.

There is that too, of course, but even without that consideration the Spaniards would never go for an English-only service.

Look at what happened in CDG after that runway incursion incident (one of the recommendations coming out of the BEA was to make CDG English-only, which was agreed by AF and the DSNA--or its predecessor, don't know if it existed back then--and most others. One of the minority ATCO unions, the kind that are always throwing sticks into the spokes for no good reason, kicked up a stink along with some ultraconservative deputies at the AN, the rightist press got into it... rest is history until the next accident happens)

Or you would have to include in the martial law that Spanish pilots who fly only in Spain and don't speak technical English will be grounded.

Just a correction: there is no martial law in force in Spain at the moment. Nor has ever been since the restoration of democracy, whatever the childish propaganda from the local unions may try to imply.

Haven't you read any of the threads about multiple languages on the frenquency ? Would you fly in a single manned airspace where the CONTROLLER wouldn't understand the situation ?

No, of course not, but at least in theory you could make certain airfields/frequencies EN only, just like we have FR-only airfields in France, or better yet, sort of like the situation in Germany; make upper airspace EN-only, no VFR there and I think (but might very well be wrong) that English level 4 is required for an IR rating. Confirmation in one sense or another would be welcome, btw.

I emphasise, you are right to say that safety would be an important consideration... but that's beyond the politicians concern and understanding.

Not talking about normal situation. Sometimes, VFRs get lost...

Agreed.

[deci]

They have an agreement. I think that it means that if 0 ATCOs will apply they will brush up someone licence to send there support. They cannot promise help and after that told them "sorry cannot help you anymore". International public relations cannot admit this, I think. Am I wrong?!

Nobody of us can be forced to go in spain and make some "training activity for 2 years".. am I wrong?

(edited to avoid speculations)

[Nock]

Sorry to disturb you in this discussion but, we were discussing at work about AENA wanting to hire some italian controllers and some points remained a little hazy (and this discussion holds so many deviations that I am unable to find out the answers!):

1) why this hiring? would foreign ATCO be used only to replace spanish ATCOs (and his this case, which ones) or would they be used as OJTI and train spanish atcos (military, civilian???)
2) is there an official paper (I have made a quick research on the aena website but with no luck) where I could find this decision to employ foreign atcos? If someone had this kind of document, could he send it to me via PM?

Last thing, I've read the really interesting issue of The Controller of october, it's well written and it really explains how things happened in Spain. I sincerely hope that no controller will accept such a deal to work for aena, just to show that we are solidary with of spanish colleagues and that you can't attack our profession in this way with the approval of the ATCO community.

good luck dear southern neighbours and thanks for your help in my search for information!

Nock

[BrATCO]

LH2,
edit : removed

Deci,

Nobody of us can be forced to go in spain and train military personnel who's going to replace fired civilian controllers (I'm afraid we're talking about this).. am I wrong?

I'm afraid this will depend on the contract you signed with your ANSP.

Anyway, you won't be able to train anyone as long as you're not qualified on the sectors (basic rule of OJTI). This after having been trained by Spanish controllers : only they can "OJT" you... or will this rule be broken too ?

Nock,
Any link about "The Controller" ?

[LH2]

I think you need to re-read the post you are replying to.

Originally Posted by BrATCO

Aren't Spaniards the ones who have been treated unable to cope with English, page after page, in this very thread ?
Was this propaganda too ?
And now, you want them to work English only ?

??? Are you sure you're not mixing up responses from various people here?

You suggest foreign controllers could come in Spain and work along with Spanish controlers...

I did not suggest that. I do not particularly give a stronzetto[*] one way or another.

[*] Interestingly, vBulleting censors the non-diminutive form.

As you don't seem to know much about control, let me tell you that even though level 4 in English can be considered enough to spit in a mike, a good level 5 in Spanish should be preconised for coming controllers to work together with Spanish controllers on a sector.

Yes, fantastic, but isn't level 4 the minimum legally required (whether that's sufficient or not, and I think we all know in practise it's probably not)? If that's not the case, I'm happy to stand corrected. Note that my mention of level 4 was in the context of pilots flying in class A airspace anyway so it's not entirely clear to me by which association of ideas you might have arrived at your response above.

Re CDG, I (really !) don't know why French came back on the freq. I just wonder why controllers who work English 90% of the time would mind adding 10%...

Well, in the post that you are putatively replying to I have explained that: political considerations completely unrelated to the aviation industry. Very sad.

Call the Royal Decrees/Government Decisions as you like.

??? Please explain?

Spanish controllers are not treated the same as the rest of Spanish population.

In one way or another every sector, community, and individual is treated in a particular way which you can argue "is not the same" as the rest. So what?

If you have any particular interest on any of this, I think you should come to Spain for a visit and see how it is all really like (a degree in anthropology would probably help )

Read : The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (I know : off-thread)

Aviation rules forbid controllers to work if ever they feel unfit for any reason, same for pilots. Why shouldn't they have a right to go on sick-leave or even quit ?

I really don't know how this relates to any recent discussion. In any event, the situation is still as per regulations, the only difference being the way it's managed, which had to change due to controllers being irresponsible and abusing the system, as has been talked about previously.

Just the contrary in fact. The reason for FR-only fields in France is precisely that they are not controlled.

I know how it works, thank you.

Being a controller, not a politician nor any union-ist, safety is my first concern.

Well, that's good to hear (especially the bit about being non-union). That's about the only sense you've talked in your whole reply I'm afraid. Not wishing to offend, but I see you are emotional and can't help to think you might be a little tired as well.

[Tarq57]

@ Nock, post 1187

Nicely said; my sentiment also.

BrATCO
I believe The Controller is only available to subscribers/members of IFATCA. Don't you get it at work?

The article was good reading. Fairly scary. Make no mistake, this will be part of an orchestrated campaign to reduce T's & C's everywhere. I don't for a moment believe that CANSO is only about technical cooperation.

[aldegar]

2) is there an official paper (I have made a quick research on the aena website but with no luck) where I could find this decision to employ foreign atcos? If someone had this kind of document, could he send it to me via PM?

I'd also be interested, should someone have the information send it also to me if possible (PM), thanks. It's all been so obscurely managed... we just found out about this, but there must be so many things going on we don't know about.

Make no mistake, this will be part of an orchestrated campaign to reduce T's & C's everywhere.

Absolutely true, in fact T's & C's are already being reduced in other countries.

Also, even though ours look as a local conflict, there are too many international issues involved: this italian agreement, DFS answering to all spanish ATCOs applying that they won't hire spanish ATCOs until our conflict is solved, foreign providers interested in taking part in the privatization of AENA, the single sky, functional blocks, the global crisis...

I don't for a moment believe that CANSO is only about technical cooperation.

Shortly after the first decree (february) Mr. Lema (AENAs president) became a member of CANSOs executive comittee.

[BrATCO]

Tarq57,
Not member of IFATCA, nor any union.
I'll try to find it tomorrow at work.

Thank you anyway.