NATS to take over spanish ATC?
 

Hello all,

I heard an interesting rumour recently about NATS bidding for the contracts to take over the training, and management of spanish ATC.

Anyone know anything?

Hee! hee! - Nice one!

...and the winners are :


AENA adjudica a Ferrovial y Saerco las torres de control de 13 aeropuertos · ELPAÍS.com

Now, we will see how Spanish case is not complicated at all.
Serco will solve it, easily. ;)

This isn't Serco...

News releases | NATS

"Innovative air traffic solutions". Does that include EFD?

Dear Spanish fellow atcos, is it finally time to understand that the moment to launch THE Company which I call since so for a long time came?
Just do it... be ready to sell your knowledge to FerroNats, AENA or Searco on before 02/05 T'nC... :ok:

A bit of context to this...

We have general elections on november 20th. The currently ruling party is expected to get their worst results ever giving absolute mayority to the conservative party, PP.
The current opposition has repeatedly said that they find it a shame that valuable state property is auctioned in a hot sale two months before the responsible for the spanish atc situation must go and with the spanish legislative (congress and senate) alredy dissolved.

Personally I'm convinced that if the situation was the opposite they would do exactly the same. Also that their interest in stopping the sale on which I'm sure that a lot of government's cronies are going to get a profit is just in order to get their own friends on the budget.

And meanwhile our dear minister of public works stating that there should be low-cost airports like there are low-cost airlines... he wasn't stupid enough to name which ones, though... some reflexes before elections at least.

Do you honestly believe that the service quality will raise as a result of this? If I am correctly informed, those airports in UK where Ferrovial has had its hand have experienced a sharp decline in customer satisfaction.

In any case, we shall see.

By the way, a spanish proverb says: "otros vendrán que bueno me harán" meaning that those coming after me will make my deeds seem very positive.

Daermon ATC, do you really believe Mariano will stop the deal after the 20N ???...
No " otros vendran e igual haran "...
SES Lex...
See you on 20N night around couple of tintos... ;)

Would you believe about 12 years ago, Paul Reid was a mere ATCO 3 at City, now he's MD of NSL!!!! How's that for a meteoric rise in salary and power! (Presumably he has minimal operational experience)
I only met him once, and he struck me as being very fond of the sound of his own voice.

It's Saerco, not Serco. It's a spanish company created by another aviation related company (helicopter sector, known as the "spanish Ryanair").

They have recently said in the media that if they win the elections on the 20N one of the first things they will do is stop the privatisation of AENA. My opinion: NEVER trust a politician.

I think the privatisation here is unstoppable because there is a lot of money involved and a lot of people (politicians included) are expecting to earn easy money from it.

NATS to take over spanish ATC?
 

chevvron .....

Paul Reid was a down to earth good guy at Glasgow.

No, it is Serco, the UK Company, who formed Saerco for the purposes of this bid and they'll probably make quite a goo job of it.
.
The other company to which you refer do not have the resources to even be considered for the original bid.

Give the guy a break. His talents seem to lie in senior management.

Seemed fairly straightforward when I met him.....

Danscowpie, I heard it was Inaer Group who created Saerco. The privatisation is being carried quite "secretly" and we are missing many of the details, so maybe you can bring some light to it: is it actually Serco who created Saerco and joined Inaer in order to have some "spanish representation" or is it Inaer the one who created Saerco and joined Serco to get the ATC knowledge? or is it just plain Serco and Inaer has nothing to do with it?

was the phrase "Our skies are not for sale" heard in Spain?
(Or perhaps "nuestros cielos no están a la venta" - courtesy of google translate) ;)

SERCO having ATC knowledge? That's a laugh, Gisajob left years ago and HE was their ATC knowledge. They're just a money making management company pure and simple.

Do you have any evidence to support that statement ? Serco were teamed with Acciona in one of the other bid teams so if that is the case they were bidding against themselves.

For the record....The winners are Ferronats and Saerco.

Serco and a joint venture partner did bid but were unsuccessful. Serco and Saerco should not be confused in this context. Saerco are a virtual unknown and the fact that they achieved ANSP certification is evidence that there was a great deal of dodgy dealing, bureaucracy and politics involved in the selection process.

It will be very interesting to see what happens now given the elections issue and the transition from one provider to another.

Let the games begin.....

'Ferronats'?
Sounds like something that Rentokil would be called out to deal with.

More fact than rumour, I thought ? - AENA to hand over Ten Airport Control Towers to Part-British Company

I consider myself well and truely put in my place and will spend the weekend sitting on barbed wire as a penance.

Danscowpie, you sounded so sure of yourself not only I believed you but I even thought you actually were from Serco ;)

Here is an interesting news report from 10 months ago (02/01/11):

http://www.aviaciondigitalglobal.com...&NotDesignId=4

It's in spanish. For those of you who don't know spanish (you can still see the pictures), it's a good example of how the privatisation is going on here. The president of Ferrovial, who regularly flies his helicopter from LECU, at that time already gave for granted he was going to be the new "boss" of that airport (probably because he already knew it even though the bid hadn't even started) and joked with the controllers there telling them to "be nice to him" and even had Ferrovial christmas presents being sent to them to the TWR. The Spanish Banana Republic style...

chevvron
 

I think you will find Mr Reid was footballer at Hibs, ATCO 3 at Glasgow, ATCO 2 WM Glasgow, Operational ATCO 2 Heathrow, GM London City, GM Gatwick, DGM Swanwick AC, GM Swanwick, Chief Operating Officer NSL and MD NSL or thereabouts.:8

Startrek,

He's not that talented. It was his brother who was the footballer at Hibs! :E

On the beach

As an understudy to Andy Goram!

@Daermon ATC
Remenber, you said :
" By the way, a spanish proverb says: "otros vendrán que bueno me harán" meaning that those coming after me will make my deeds seem very positive. "

Did you enjoy the new spanish movie " Carmen strikes back " ???...
As I said : " No, otros vendrán e igual harán "...
Suerte... ;)

Eastern wiseguy

I met the chap in question briefly at EGLL.

You may think that the words arrogant, uncaring and self-opinionated are going to appear now, but I couldn't possibly comment.

Minesthechevy


All the qualities you would expect in a senior manager.

obwan - sadly I think you are right. I met some cracking good managers, but from a certain level upwards they all turned out to be merde-merchants. There are two in particular that I would willingly do time for if I ever met them again.

I bet you mean the 'One eyed golfer' Mick. Also how did that Welsh pr*t keep his job after allegedly fiddling the company.

Quite a few I'd quite happily run over if they stepped in the road in front of me!

You are unfortunately right, Saintex.

For the rest, he is talking about the new appointment of Carmen Librero as Secretary of Transportation in Spain. She had been the director of Air Navigation at Aena during all the conflicts with controllers and is credited to have a large share of responsibility in the ongoing hostilities.

I must confess I'm a bit surprised. I thought that after that disgrace had been safely deported (ICAO at Quebec if I remember correctly) we had seen the last of her. I certainly did not expect her to be recycled by the other political party, not her old cronies.

Trust me, when (not if) the next Überlingen happens, chances are it will be over Spain. And I'll see any wager that not a single politician or Aena manager will be ever held accountable for it.

Got it in one, Brian. The other one had more Ps and Zs in his name than vowels.