Giving away our airspace and jobs
 

The UK has plans to give away massive revenue to the Irish. The Single Sky initiative looks like encouraging this all round.

Single Sky

So who wants a bit of Clacton to make some money out of ? :( Anyone for the rest of the North Sea to bring us down to Band 3 ATCOs ? :mad:

Let's see Serco run a service to the new "third" runway at Heathrow when it finally gets built ;)

That's enough of that Jerricho.Don't go planting any seeds otherwise you may well end up with an unexpected new neighbour.

We are not talking about small things like another runway at a decent sized European airport. What we are talking about is our complete ATC service being undermined by unfair competition from cheaper NATIONAL operations around Europe. :*

Sorry Arran, they say sarcasm is the lowest form of humour.

Reading through the articles the comment 'You can make nice plans, but if the member states don't implement it you have a problem,' stands out. Can you see our French brothers and sisters readily giving up centres and airspace. Just look at their attempts at adoption of EU directives.

Worry Not!
 

It will never happen. Eurocontrol was a super idea, and was a logical first move towards Single Sky. The reality is that the idea is for everybody else.......not the UK. As soon as the plan becomes feasible you will hear a screeching crescendo of reverse thrust. To quote a Labour Party spokesperson "Our Sky is not for sale".....Oops.....hang on a minute.....heard that before.

Oh for Gawd's sake, why all this antipathy towards the NOTA? The Irish now have a radar that looks out over that bit of airspace and we would be failing the aviation community, who after all pay for the service, if we prevented them from using it simply to protect a few theoretical jobs. As for revenue, Shannon would have to be giving some pretty bizarre routings for aircraft to avoid UK airspace.

And anyway, it isn't 'our' airspace to give. Shanwick's airspace is international and it is up to ICAO who provides the air traffic services within it. In fact the Irish could legitimately tear up the Shanwick agreement in a couple of years and put a case to ICAO for them, and them alone, to provide ATS within the Shanwick area. And that would NOT be good news for real ATC jobs in the west of Scotland.

Geesh the piano tuners are out already!!!
Face it the single sky is the only way to cope with the expected increases in traffic and provide a decent service to the airlines. With the shortages in ATCOs around the world, I seriously doubt anybodies job will be at risk anyway. As for the UK, would imagine you'll come away pretty well in the whole scheme of things and it's the smaller European centres that would be closed.

Mind you with modern technology they could always set up a centre in Delhi :}

FT

This lady knows what she is talking about. The word interoperability has a specific meaning amongst equipment manufacturers and ATC providers.It is not just compatibile with it's neighbour it is actually capable of replicating everything that can be done in the other centre.

It is quite feesible that major centres working on the same equipment could shift sectors between centres at certain times of the day. For instance how many Centres have to staff up to the maximum for the North Atlantic day and night flows ? There is only one flow but it moves between every centre over a few days. Each centre has to staff up for the maximum traffic........... just have a few minutes thinking of how you might do it if you were either paying the bills or interested in making a bigger profit :ooh:

Jerricho It wasn't just the French; the UK, W. Germany, Ireland and the Dutch originally refused to delegate airspace to Eurocontrol.

Maastricht UAC originally controlled only the Upper airspace of Belgium and Luxembourg FL195+

In 1974 The Hannover airspace FL245+ was added with Lippe Radar (German Air Force) also moving there. Additionally Eurocontrol Centres were built at Karlsruhe and Shannon and were both rapidly re-nationalised.

In 1987, after considerable political infighting, the Dutch airspace FL300+ was added.

The division level is now a uniform FL 245 and sector boundaries do not neccessarily conform to national boundaries.

The latest move is to separate the UAC from the rest of the organisation and to nationalise it, probably under the DFS (Deutsche Flugsicherung)

The treality of the One Sky movement, which, by the way, is not new, having been around for some 10 years, lies not so much in consolidation of the number of centres, however desireable that may be, but in the adoption of common systems * and procedures.Findo I think has hit the nail on the head, in fact let's take it one step further and allow controllers to work from home. The technology exists :ok:
The introduction of the "Free Skies" in a couple of years makes this more and more imperative; although the ideal of smaller, or less efficient, centres being consoldated across national boundaries is probably still as far away as it was when I joined Eurocontrol in 1970.

Lon More

Here before Pontius was a Pilot or Mortus was a Rigger

* Much of the development work required for NERC duplicated that already done in Bretigny sur Orge under the auspices of Eurocontrol and was therefore readily available. Little use seems to have been made of this.

Balix where are you looking. Take a route from London to LA and a quick dodge into Irish airspace and go from south east to north west into the NOTA ... out to 15 W and pay your 55 pounds to Shanwick and a bit to Iceland. You have just saved a fortune and cost NATS a mint. Take every other route similar and drag the traffic away from the UK charges and replace with Irish and you see where it starts to lead ?

Sure the Irish have a radar. One the EU paid for and one we couldnt get access to.

Theoretical jobs ? Take at least 3 per watch off Scottish as soon as the routes are established. Increase our charges to the remaining airlines and see what they do.

And this is only the start. The Single Sky is all about encouraging this and who is the only privatised ATC service which can be bought out ?????? :uhoh:

Your right Lon, it wasn't just the French.

And it was a cheap shot, but going on past form for industrial action (the rights and wrongs have been thrashed out here on more than one occasion), the whole process could be a major headache for the WHOLE of Euroland.

"Lon"..... you're quite right about our beloved deutsch brethren, they've got that urge again! :ugh:

An interjection :D

Some of you may not know, but many international airlines have a part of the flight planning computer software that looks not only at the cost of the flight from winds aloft and routing, but also ATC charges. I know of a couple of airlines that fly longer routes to miss certain ATC charges at different locations just becuase of the high fees. It is all taken into acount today..

regards

Scott

Scott, One of them is the world's favourite airline, NOT. They bypass the Belgian airspace where possible, taking a route through the Netherlands where possible, even if it means accepting some delay

Jerricho, won't worry me any more, presently on sick leave (fell asleep talking to the boss:uhoh: ) and taking ETS anyway next month 35+ years abusing body and mind both in UK - LATCC, Sopley, Gatwick - and in Euroland have finally caught up with me:O

Lon More
Here since before Pontius was a Pilot or Mortus was a Rigger

Arran's View

Doesn't matter how they got it, it is there and it would be criminal not to use it. As for routings, operators have to file certain routes at the moment depending on their NAT track - why would this have to change? Dodges are not allowed (although I admit that they do happen)

And three ATCOs per watch? Not sure where you get the number from but I'm sure that Sector 7 would swallow them up. Hey, another chunk of Band 5 airspace taken over by a Band 4 unit - management would LOVE that. Perhaps that is their ulterior motive...

Sure, there has to be safeguards and the thing needs to be carefully looked into but to oppose the establishment of a radar service in a current non-radar environment is 21st century luddism.

Sorry Balix but you are talking Balix for once.

We are not just talking about a few aircraft missing out of NATS controlled airspace we are talking every east and westbound flight from south of Birmingham getting a cheaper routing because the Irish have been allowed to use a radar paid for by EU funds to provide a service where we could easily provide one - if we had access to the radar the EU paid for. And who gets all the income ? A direct competitor to NATS.

Never mind what sector 7 or anything else might bring to Scottish we are talking about major income loss to the whole of NATS and guess what part of NATS costs most ???? The staff. So where do you think the pressure to recover that money will hit first ? Just plan for those nightshifts with less staff and 0530 starts for the mornings.

More like an reason for managment trying to make us Band 3 !! :mad:

Hey, 0530 starts? Great, make us up to a Band 5 unit and I'll do my one a month.

Anyway, I still feel you are panicing unnecessarily over something that is inevitable. Yeah, I'm sure we could work the NOTA if we got a feed from that radar but the Irish would then set their sights on Shanwick and we could well lose fifty jobs - don't forget that they have job issues as well as us. Far better for NATS and the IAA to come to some sort of amicable agreement that suits both parties.

sorry but Balix again. 0530 starts ? If the pay agreement goes through you are liable to do them without any regrading.

The IAA could never have done the Shanwick job and tried it as a bluff. they don't have 50 spare ATCOs or any with Oceanic experience, can't afford to import them and haven't the equipment to do it anyway. It was a con and they are happy to admit it in private.

We didn't come to any amicable agreement. We were forced by the Government into this. It suits the Irish just great. They will now have control of about 90% of all east and west and wesbound Ocean traffic and will direct it through their airspace making lods of money. What do we get out of this amicable agrrement ? We lose loads of money and will lose jobs. :}

I think this matter is being seriously underestimated by many. The potential impact is pretty massive as well as the precedent it sets for other Single Sky dealings.

I have written complaining to the Prospect General Secretary about the lack of action. So far that has sparked one letter and b****r all else :mad: