Singapurcanac : IFATCA bulletins aim is not really to change the Decrees or reverse the Governement decisions ,they are more about giving "the other side" views and correcting some "spinned" facts .
. In any dispute there are 2 points of view.
The view of the governement , including desinformation and news spinning, is well known, now you have the other side view, You make your own opinion.
IFATCA also say Safety today is eroded by the current State of alarm , and nobody so far questionned that point.


The Spanish parlement today willd debate if the State of alarm is prolonged for another 2 weeks period . The final decision is not that assured, as now the question is moves to a political level.

As to the mumbers, as I said here a few posts before, the final aim of all this is not about salaries or number of hours or right to strike , it is about changing an economical model to prepare the privatisation (selling) of a Air navigation service Provider.

I just pointed out that IFATCA is really nothing.Especially when hard times come.
They have never changed anything,especially sovereign goverment decesion.

so the real question is WHY?
Because,current system is inefficient ,slow and non progressive.
And rich people loose too much. :ok:
that's is the first reason.
the second one is : possible profit for rich people. :}
The third one: refer to previous two :{:mad:

so workers' rights on one side and some Texas boy on the other.
Guess who is looser at the end of the day....:E

Singapurcanac : The perfect world according to Singapore , hey ? No Unions , and power to the rich and to the efficient ? Nice concept but not new. China is trying it at the moment with success.Not sure the rest of their society will accept this forever though.

Quoting you :
Not true, but who cares ? The issue in life is to always try, not to succeed immediately .IFATCA aims are long term . You'll be surprised what organisations like IFATCA or IFALPA do achieve behind the scenes.

wrong snake at wrong head,my mate.

I am also for workers' right at first place. I even don't know where is China,and never bored to lean where it is ,just because I do not accept such system. :ugh:

if we are talking in that directions we have situation that greed workers ,or their union representatives,made in past deal that was good but they didn't chage it when it was neccessary. It was their duty to anticipate ,to avoid such situation.
but greed was greater.
They ALL*know the numbers ,mentioned above.
they also believe that someone else will solve their problems.
and now they want solidarity.

ALL* - Spanish ATC association, ATC Union, ATC managers, Minister(s),and King as well.

their biggest achievment was organization of annual conference at exotic places. I have to confirm that choices are very good and done behind scenes as ussual,
:E

singapurcanac is sometimes producing BS, but I easily agree with his latest observation - IFATCA has lost its compass in a big way...

OMG you have done "math" and "calculations"! You must be lying, go home with your family! Of course I'm just kidding :)

I used 450,000 like I could have used 300,000, the idea was to prove a point. If we take your calculation, and the numbers from AENA's 2009 consolidated report,

http://www.aena.es/csee/ccurl/412/55...%202009_EN.pdf

we can see that

Staff costs = 1,310 Million €
Total AENA staff = 15,256
Of which ATCOs = 2,404

Thus, ATCOs which represent 15.7% of staff, are eating 48% of staff costs at AENA. IMHO this is hugely out of proportion. The average salary of other AENA employees is 53,000€ a year, or 17.6% of an ATCO's average salary.

If IFATCA or USCA or anyone else can still defend this, they must be crazy. It's simply not economically viable, even if AENA were not to be privatized, or even if AENA wasted millions in building loss-leading airports etc.

You are completely right, I doubt any pilot would accept such one-sided, riddled with factual errors bulletin, which even falls into a gross contradiction as to how the walk-out was triggered and how it took place. See my previous post on the subject where I analyze all this.

Well, at least they are quiet Fat Cat directors. They don't complain about how much they work or how much they are stressed out, and they don't keep organizing hidden strikes every two months.

Just so you know, absenteeism in the ATCO group is between 15% to 30%, whereas the rest of AENA suffers 4.2%. That includes the directors etc. If ATCOs are so prone to illness maybe the recruitment processes are wrong, or they should think of changing jobs.

It would be interesting to know what is the level of absenteeism in other ATC services such as UK or Maastricht.

I can understand nobody wants to work with an armed guard standing next to him, but ATCOs have even said they are working under less stress now than when they had AENA supervisors over them.

I've been reading through safety reports for Spain, and in 2008 we had 78 A+B incidents, how does that compare with other countries? In the near future we will also see if the number of incidents increased during these troubled weeks.

Maybe those same 'fat cat' directors are also directors of Barcelona and Real Madrid football clubs; the money to run them must come from somewhere!

Language Profeciency
 

I heard Mr Blanco mention this morning in an interview that earlier on this year, as a good gesture towards negotiation with the controllers, he had been kind enough to 'postpone' the requirement for all Spanish controllers to have their English Language skills tested so that they could have time to prepare for the tests! Here in the UK, we had to get our licences re-issued to comply with European Licence requirements by August this year. I wonder:
1. Shouldn't they already have the required language proficiency to 'do their job'?
2. Is Mr Blanco so concerned that a significant number of Spanish ATCOs do not meet the required ICAO level 4 that he, pressumably having had to request permission in Europe first, was fored to delay by law the implementation of the European Licence to guarantee Air Traffic Service provision?

European Directives state that "Member States shall ensure that air traffic controllers can demonstrate the ability to speak and understand English to a satisfactory standard"

....there is much more to the whole situation than people realise.

I have also heard Mr Blanco and other members of the government talk about the future and how they would bring controllers from abroad (WHO???) and provide fast track validation for Military controllers to cover for unexpected situations like the events of last week.
:eek:

Isaid180...

Have you not realised by now that the purpose of anything that Snr. Blanco says is said purely to keep the pot boiling, to keep the press and media on the government and AENA's side and to continue the smokescreen diverting peoples attention away from all of the other unpleasant things that are being foisted onto the Spanish people?

He is using exactly the same tactics as Thatcher and Blair did whenever they wanted to underhandedly catch the Brit public on the hop...it's all diversionary propaganda;

"It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion."...Josef Goebbels (circa1930) and...

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."

On a lighter note...

"Politicians are like seagulls. They arrive from out of nowhere in a fluster, squawking, sticking their beaks in.... crapping all over everything and then flying off leaving a mess."

"Politicians are like nappies / diapers...They should be changed frequently, and for the same reason."

Billy Connolly: 'Anyone who wants to be a politician should be automatically barred from being one.'

This is a propaganda battle with both sides using the same textbooks; unfortunately the government / AENA as the holders of the purse strings have the upper hand.

As a Brit living in Spain in retirement I have come to realise that when it comes to political issues both here and in the UK (and anywhere else for that matter), you don't listen to what they are saying, you listen out for what they are not saying...and that applies equally to both sides in this matter.

pp

Language Proficiency:
A report in a newspaper article recently said that, since AENA took over the management of ATCOs from USCA in Februay 2010, they had been providing English exams for ATCOs to comply with the above European Directive. However AENA reported that they had had very limited success, since only about 5% of the active ATCOs had volunteered to take the exam.

The Spanish Parliament have voted favourably to continue the military supervision of ATCOs until the 15th of January 2011, to make sure that the Christmas holiday period will be free of any possible industrial action.

That is more shocking than I thought. Could it have been simply rebellion against the government or a genuine concern that they would not get the required level? :confused:

@ PP
I am aware of the demonisation campaign against controllers of the current government and they are suceeding as the majority of population are channelling all the anger and frustration towards the controllers who haven't made themselves any favours with the events of last week. I know politicians 'often' manipulate information and they have done it especially with regards to the conflict with the controllers. Sadly, most people believe every single word and have little knowledge of the specific complications about training and working terms and conditions of ATC It seems like the controllers are now responsible for the economic crisis and the government are saving Spain from the evil ones.... what a load of rubbish!

A report in a newspaper...remember...

Or could it be they already have the qualification and see no need to repeat the process?

I certainly wouldn't volunteer to retake any exams I passed years ago...got enough stress on my plate already... I wouldn't want to have to take my driving test again for that matter...

Those of us born and raised in the UK have a distinct advantage over most other countries; we don't have to learn a second language; imagine if all Brit ATCO positions were based on a requirement to speak French or German ...or Spanish!

Of course they have....I seriously doubt that the government ever had any other intention... to the best of my knowledge, under the Spanish Constitution they can continue to do so ad infinitum...and irrespective of the legality of the use of the State of Alarm...got to keep Johnny Rebel under the thumb... and post a warning to any other rebellious group like train drivers, metro drivers, bus drivers...or any other group that can remotely be classified as 'essential services'...

Precisely what Ive been saying all along...scapegoats and smokescreens...

pp

I really have no idea how anyone can defend this:

"Among the largest ANSPs, however, Aena has by far both the lowest productivity (see left-hand side of Figure 0.17) and the highest employment costs per ATCO-hour (see right-hand side of Figure 0.17). This raises a serious performance issue."

Taken from:

http://www.eurocontrol.int/prc/galle...ing_Report.pdf

So this is not a "newspaper" or "media", but an Eurocontrol report. It states that Spain's ATCOs cost 191€/hour, while their productivity is 0.54 flight-hours per ATCO hour. NATS in comparison is at 96€/hour, and 1.14 flight-hours per ATCO hour.

So, an ATCO in Spain costs almost twice as one in the UK, and is half as productive. Please explain how this, which has dragged on for years, didn't require an adjustment. Please explain how with these numbers, the ATCOs can still walk away from the job for "working too many hours" or "being stressed out", when they are handling half the workload of their NATS counterparts.

"Achieving productivity improvements in a context of declining traffic is going to be a challenge. It will require a critical review of managing overtime and more effective use of the ATCO-hours on duty."

This is what took place early this year, albeit with a botched and badly handled process on the government's part.

There is also an interesting table on page 125, with figures such as number of ATCOs, number of sectors per ACC, etc. The conclusions for all of 2008:

- ATCOs in Spain were on duty for 1786 hours, handled 2500 IFR flights each, and there are an average of 17 ATCOs on roster per sector. Each ATCO handled 1150 flight-hours each, and 1.4 flights per hour.

- ATCOs in NATS-UK were on duty for 1268 hours, handled 5000 IFR flights each, and there are an average of 12 ATCOs on roster per sector. Each ATCO handled 1450 flight-hours each, and 3.9 flights per hour.

So, how on Earth can anyone, no matter how deep his head is up a union's :mad: defend this performance? Whatever the government did wrong to handle the situation, seems almost warranted by these figures.

There are better ways
 

This sort of flaming is quite much counter productive.

It is apparent, that just by listening to the frequencies nobody can grasp the complexities of a particular ATS system. It does not make anybody an expert even if you visit a couple a times in an ATS unit. You simply can not know all of the facts. Not even an ATCO working in a different country can compare the systems. At least it is like comparing oranges with apples.

Different rules and airspaces/procedures CAN NOT be compared. It is interesting to see the statistical figures.

It just happens to be so that air traffic controllers are NOT the ones responsible for planning the procedures OR the airspace structure OR organizing the shift allocation. These are the MAIN factors that lead to the statistics. NOT unions. NOT ATC:s. NOT the salary.

It is even useless to rant or judge the people responsible for the structure of a particular ATS system. If you truly want to be productive, this is not the way to improve things.

Absolutely Slo Moe :
Let me try a simple comparison :

Let's compare 2 employees of say, Banks :

One is given a BMW as a company car and, due to insurance reasons is not allowed to take anyone else in the car when coming to work.
The Bank branch opening times are 0930 to 1530 and is located in a small town of 10.000, no real automation in the branch .

The other is given a Toyota , company has a car pooling policy, bank is located in a city of 300.000 with opening times of 07:30 to 17:30 and the company has full automation devices to serve clients.

The employees of the second bank will be 3 or 4 times more productive and at a lower cost than the first one . But is the employee responsible for this ?

So trashing the employees ( the Spanish controllers ) instead of the Bank (AENA) is definitively not the way to make the Bank more productive.

flameproof, how are the controllers responsible for the manning levels of the sectors and the sector structure? Those things are the domain of management and regulatory bodies so they bear the responsibility for this cluster :mad:.

Averages are a terribly blunt tool and say nothing about peaks and complexity. Staffing needs to be at levels to safely handle peaks not just the bean counting averages. Why do airlines bother with two pilots? On average they sit on their arses doing nothing much.......

from my point of view it is not question about productivity at it basic meaning.
It is consequence.

i just pointed out that Spanish ATCOs didn't react correctly,long time ago.
they enjoyed privileged during good period of bussines.
but as we all know there is always bad period behind good so employee and his representatives (unions and proffesional associations) MUST react in advance.

They know that revenues are reduced.

They know the basic maths and economics.

They know that their tourism(the main "enginee" for their bussiness ) is under big threat and every single Euro is big

They know for lack of staff,all airspace constraints, market requirements and so on...

they know political situation in Spain,as overall statement,not dayli politics. State of Alarm is miracle in Sweden,not in Southern Europe. :(

what do they belive,that they go the the bad in Spain,and find themselves in Norway? :ugh::ugh::ugh:

Having in mind what current situation might develop yet,i said that AENA and therefore Spanish ATCOs must increase productivity.

Otherwise, impact will enormous especially on tourism industry.
with one more toursim downturn, Spanis economy will be out of consideration. :E

Unlike some other eurpean touristic destination Spanish toruism havily depnds on aviation.
Ineffective ATC as consequence will have ineefective flying.

It will reflect on ticket price, thus will effect overall price for holiday thus will put some other destination at better postition.

I just wanted to help Spanish colleagues, by pointing their mind in right direction.
sometimes it is easier to see if you aren't direct involved.

Final consequence will be:
-if problem continiues, privatization will save rich people. they will buy ANSP for small amount of money, they will significantly reduce costs by openning position to foreigner competitions ,that will push down even more domestic workfoce,and finally put ATC and consequently aviation within "competitive margins" .

and it will happen very fast. because rich people loosing too much for every ineeficient day.
and as we all know those rich have very effective system of ruling.

Does someone said corruption? :mad::mad:

Painfull but simple and easy.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaming_(Internet)

"Flaming, also known as bashing, is hostile and insulting interaction between Internet users."

I don't see my post as being hostile and insulting. It may be harsh, but I wouldn't consider it flaming. Anyway,

If you are again referring to my listening to ATC or "a couple of visits" to an ATS unit (it was three years, but hey...), then you are flaming, not me. I'm starting to get used to the abuse on this forum, so whatever floats your boat.

If you are inferring that Eurocontrol does a 100+ page report by listening to frequencies and a couple of visits to ATS units, then you're probably quite misguided.

If you actually read the Eurocontrol report, you will see that there are many weighing factors to compensate precisely for all the things that make airspace different, it would be stupid of course to do otherwise.

You are obviously completely unfamiliar with the situation, its history, and how it developed. In Spain, the ATCOs were the ones opening and closing sectors, organizing shift allocation, and were directly involved in planning of procedures and airspace structure. In fact, until 2009, ATCOs were not required to use any form of shift control (punch-card, etc.) to verify hours worked. It is all written in the 1999 agreement, which you haven't bothered to read.

One of the main complaints from ATCOs this year, since February, is that planning of airspace, capacity, shifts etc. is now done by AENA supervisor staff, and not by them, which leads to endless problems (this could be somewhat true, but it's a different issue and it only started this year).

It is when the employees have been effectively running the bank, under pressure and coercion as they could at any time open the vaults and pour the cash out on the street. We have direct losses of over 300 MILLION € due to the walk-out, and indirect losses are still being figured out. This threat has been ALWAYS present, and has been ALWAYS used by USCA. At least someone agrees:

The union, USCA, was running the show. It was in the process awarding itself huge payouts thanks to overtime.

Yes, but with the numbers we have, there is simply NO WAY that peak traffic can justify the staffing levels and cost. UK airspace has a complexity level of 4/5 as defined by Eurocontrol, whereas Spain barely passes 1/5. Complexity takes of course into account peak traffic.

This is a chart showing the number of aircraft movements and flights under ATC control per controller, between 2001 and 2009:

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/7585/acmatco.png

While ATCOs have grown every year between 2001 and 2009, from 1753 to 2404, traffic peaked in 2007, and has been falling since. In any case, the extra controllers with a reduced load would mean a decrease in staffing costs, as there would be less of the hugely expensive overtime being done (remember, anything above 1200 hours was paid at almost 3x normal rate!). But in fact, staffing costs have risen every year, from around 140€ in 2000, to 191€ in 2009 (€ per ATCO hour). In 2008, ATCOs in Spain worked an average of 1786 hours, which seems a lot when you consider the decrease in traffic and movements.

If you want to refute my arguments, make your own calculations, don't just say they can't be done, as it appears Eurocontrol doesn't agree with you (they release yearly PRR reports etc.). Otherwise, are you telling me the following:

ATC costs will be whatever they happen to be, as there is no way to measure if the costs correspond with reality.

Statistics and metrics exist for many reasons, one of them is to identify gross divergence from the norm, as is the case in Spain.

What helps?
 

This is what it very much looks like.

Scapegoating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From a totally outsider point of view.

Blaming has never been an effective way of leadership. If you consider what really can be achieved when someone (ATCO:s in this case) are blamed about systemic "wholes" in the cheese. Scapegoating has been in use for a long long time. There are better ways.

It defies any logic that blaming would make ANY system better.

W. Edwards Deming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Especially point 8.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.


What impression I have is that the Spanish government has actually done effectively the very things they fear the most: Eroding the trust in a once highly reliable ATS system. Costly, maybe yes. But very reliable.

What measures or actions draw in more tourists to Spain? Facts about Spanish situation are widely known already.

It really is not to blame ANY group of individuals about a "national deficit". It just does not help.

What helps?

Reality? Oh, you're meaning a rather peculiar definition of reality - the world as you think it should be as opposed to what it actually is.

Of course the costs can be whatever they happen to be. How is it so hard to grasp that it's whatever management agrees to pay the workers plus other fixed costs. If they chose to buy a new $500million system or spend on money on other things then that gets thrown in as well.

Why do different airlines not all charge the same for tickets and have the same operating costs? I'm sure you can answer that one.