For number lovers
 

It is very popular these days so it comes to my mind to express salary over the carrier time span.
01.10.2001- first full ATCO salary- x grams of gold
31.05.2004.- APS rating- 4x
01.01.2014- first full CRCO payment salary 2x
​As of today, x+ 0,2g of gold.

Of course, it is all rellative to time and value, but I remember season 2004/2005 that salary was really serious within community.

😇

But the price of a gram of gold today is how many times higher ? but more importantly what was the buying power of a gram of gold in 2000 compared to today ?

There was a time when it seemed to be the tradition in the UK to do it with Mars bars.

It also come to my mind that different commodities will telll different stories.
chewing gum- was 1 DM over most of time .
In that sense
01.10.01 X
31.05. 04 5X
01.01.14 4x
​1today 8-9x

But as I wrotte it happened that best gold ratio also refflects best part of carrier... work at challenge airport enviroment coupled with living in grreat city with more than great salary ( when compared to local standard) ...

My first operational job in the UK (1976) - 2.5 times my salary bought a reasonable house for a first time buyer.

How about today ?

I have some idea what number in the context of buying real estate could be- but I find it very challenging to determine . At least what is decent real estate? Milion people- milion answers.
wide guess:
Any real estate, suitable for work at my unit- 2-3 month salaries....
Some medium solutions , neither anything nor decent 10 month/ salaries ( net)

Decent, that will attract my attention, both for location and quality- not below 36 salaries..

It depends completely where you want to live and where you ATS unit is located. Take Germany for instance in the Frankfurt / and Langen area it is very expensive to own a house, but same house in Hahn airport for instance is roughly 5 times cheaper
in France , a house in Reims is roughly half the price of Bordeaux or Orly , and 3 times less that Aix en Provence .

I comparing salaries over the year is interesting , I remember the fist time I visited an ATC facility in the US was in 1980 in , the new York Tracon in Long island, where a US controller there was making 80.000 $ a year , and could buy a new car with 1 month salary and buy a house a year salary . OK a prefabricated wood house which is the norm in the US., I was really impressed at the time because in Europe on average in 1980 a new car was out of reach and a family house was around 10 years salary at least .
Today, 45 years later a US NY tracon controller gets around 300.000 USD ( but with overtime on a 6 days a week schedule still unchanged since 1980) can still buy a US car with one month salary but I am not sure if he could buy a house with 300,000, more like double I guess. and In Washington it would be more like 3 years Just guessing .
In Europe today with the average salaries I would say 2 months would be good for a new small car ( not a BMW of course) but a house is still quite a few years , something like 5 years I would guess. But again houses quality in US and Europe is not the same ..But we in Europe improved a lot since the 80s...much more than in the US..