Scottish/Irish F.A.B..... ? Virgil ... ? Anyone .. ?
 

The rumour mill continues to grind ...

Anyone know what the current state of foreplay is with last years FAB proposals to hand 3 high-level sectors and chunks of the Scottish UIR to the Irish ?

That nice Mr Barron on a trip to Scotland earlier in the year, promised the peasants that NATS was NOT in the business of giving away airspace ...

(Hmmmm, NOTA, NOTA2 spring to mind ..... )

Recent rumours suggest that the Scottish/Irish FAB is actually a fait accompli ... due to start in 2008.

Once again no news get filtered down to those on the shop floor who would be affected by this .....

Why don't I trust the silence from on high .. ?

To be fair to Mr Barron 'twas not he who 'gave away' the NOTA, it was a done deal before he got the job. The argument went that we were not giving any airspace away as Shanwick's airspace isn't really ours anyway. Belive it if you want...

Giving away our domestic airspace is a whole different ball game, even if NATS and IAA become one big happy family. It would be a major undertaking to train up Shannon staff on the new sectors and an even bigger one to train ScACC staff on, as was proposed at the time, the Dublin TMA. I fail to see the advantages. The Irish would have the oceanic interface every day, no matter where the tracks were, which would allow them to better utilise their staff but as all that traffic would hit UK airspace eventually, both LACC and ScACC would have to be staffed assuming that the bulk of the traffic would be passing through their sectors.

The net result is no decrease in the number of staff required over the three centres so what is the point?

Balix, you talk sense. But surely one possibility would be for tumbleweed to be blowing through nPC as the Irish had 'nicked' a significant amount of traffic?

PS. Health warning - I don't profess to be any sort of expert on Oceanic trends or the NOTA.

Nicking traffic was always a danger. But if we become one big happy functional airspace block there would be no reason to nick the traffic, would there?

Anyway, I always thought the 'nicking traffic' argument was a bit misleading as any traffic entering Shannon's NOTA, with the exception of Irish inbounds, would have to fly through UK airspace anyway. The Irish would have to give the service away for free to make it worth while for an airline to make a big detour.

Tumble weed at PC, never :E

I was 'briefed' recently and it was made VERY clear that its not policy to give away airspace or anything else that generates revenue. I think the chances of sharing the airspace and revenue are good, as long as there is a lot in it for us. lat I heard was Dublin TMA to ScACC down to FL155, I can't remember the other airspace changes.

Political hot potato around the corner. What if UK airspace within a FAB is controlled by a non-UK agency whose controllers object to the transit of military aircraft and/or sensitive cargo?
Let's think twice before shifting work to off-shore low-pay ATC call centres in the pursuit of profit.

Uberlingen! The delegation of German airspace to Switzerland. This has caused all sorts of problems with arrests in Germany.

We've already got it - the Donegal fillet is Irish airspace delegated to us and even where it isn't, the FIR/UIR boundary does not follow the actual national boundary between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Any news ...
 

Any more news on this .. ?

Nothing on NATS website yet [something on NATSNET for internal users]
Just a basic release on www.transport.ie ...not much detail.

My uninformed impression, after reading the release to NATS staff, was that this is all hot air and no substance. It talks about "benefits" here and there but doesn't seem to ever indicate what they might be... since there will be "no immediate changes".

Sounds like people who have been paid to work on something for 4 years and not achieved much progress trying to justify themselves with an announcement over nothing.

I did say it was uninformed... :ok:

The impression I've got from the IAA side is that its all style and little or no substance. A lot of committees and groups being set up, various structures for investigating future developments, etc...
But the IAA and NATS get the kudos apparently of being the first official FAB in Europe.

Day to day operations remain essentially the same although this may change at some stage in the future. Same as ever.

I believe the IAA guy was asked will there be any benefits in this FAB?

His answer "None whatsoever"

Says it all really.