NATS Redundancies
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I suggest you read the science kcockayne. The virus is a single strand of RNA that has only mutated once. It is amenable to vaccines. There are 9 leading projects using at least 5 different methods. We know patients often produce antibodies and we also now know that if re exposed the antibodies respond. All this suggests one or other vaccine will succeed and GAVI and the major players such as AZ and Sanofi are building capacity.
Separately there is possibly an evens chance the virus may simply disappear as did SARS and although we may get a resurgence of cases from easing lockdown too early, there is no evidence of the mythical second wave.
I would put money on a vaccine by Q4 and the end of new medical cases in 2021. The economic issues will take longer to resolve especially if idiots apply quarantine in June as opposed to February and scatter taxpayers' money to all and sundry instead of supporting those most effected.
Separately there is possibly an evens chance the virus may simply disappear as did SARS and although we may get a resurgence of cases from easing lockdown too early, there is no evidence of the mythical second wave.
I would put money on a vaccine by Q4 and the end of new medical cases in 2021. The economic issues will take longer to resolve especially if idiots apply quarantine in June as opposed to February and scatter taxpayers' money to all and sundry instead of supporting those most effected.
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Time for NATS to be Re-Nationalised I think! 
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NATS have learnt nothing over the years about staffing. It has always irked the management that the staff they have in the summer are still there in the winter when the traffic is down by 50%. Everything is so short term in NATS and this knee jerk decision to give notice on the key agreement on redundancy is no different. Get out and borrow at a low rate and get all of the projects done that are usually constrained for 8 months of the year because of the operational staffing requirement.
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I have been gob smacked by NATS last few years, the pension scheme has been paying out figure 2 or 3 times the value of a similar pension pot in local government! Then if you're old enough to retire leave and re-employed as consultant on more than were on before you took the pension pot! They seem to have been throwing away money! I won't even go into projects!!
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Where's that figure from? Outgoings of ~£60m per month are more accurate, approx 80% of which is staff. I think total income last year was just shy of the £1b mark.
It's about 5000 people in total. I believe about a third (happy to be corrected) of that are directly related to the operation, i.e. ATCOs/ATSAs/Engineers etc. With the rest being backroom/project staff.
This
and this
are spot on.
If redundancies are to happen I would expect the majority to be the office staff. If you do the maths NATS can't afford to let many operational staff go. As has been mentioned there's an awful lot of retirements on the horizon (I think about a third of ATCOs are expecting to retire over the next ten years) and with a lead time of up to four years to recruit and train a fully qualified ATCO (never mind a couple more years of getting some experience under their belt) they're going to find themselves very short in a year or two once traffic is at 'normal' levels again. The CEO keeps banging on about how the size of the company will need to reflect the amount of flying going on. He seems to conveniently forget the fact we've been chronically understaffed for the past 5 years (overtime is the only thing that's stopped enormous delays over the summers) and are now probably at the correct level of staffing for what's expected to be normal traffic when all this is over. At the end of the day the funding model is flawed. The company can't grow and shrink at a moments notice to match current traffic as management types want it too. Of course none of us expect them to do the correct thing. We'll be picking up the pieces from the rash decisions currently being made for quite some time.
I have no idea how many staff NATS employ. I have no idea how many of those staff are ATCOs and how many are office types
This
Just remember that once an ATCO is gone, that's it. To get a new one, even from another unit will take at least 6 months to a year to replace. If it takes 3 to 4 years to get back to where we were, NATS would still need to recruit like crazy to replace the staff who leave on retirement, If they cut back the delays could impact aviation for many years.
NATS have learnt nothing over the years about staffing. It has always irked the management that the staff they have in the summer are still there in the winter when the traffic is down by 50%. Everything is so short term in NATS and this knee jerk decision to give notice on the key agreement on redundancy is no different. Get out and borrow at a low rate and get all of the projects done that are usually constrained for 8 months of the year because of the operational staffing requirement.
If redundancies are to happen I would expect the majority to be the office staff. If you do the maths NATS can't afford to let many operational staff go. As has been mentioned there's an awful lot of retirements on the horizon (I think about a third of ATCOs are expecting to retire over the next ten years) and with a lead time of up to four years to recruit and train a fully qualified ATCO (never mind a couple more years of getting some experience under their belt) they're going to find themselves very short in a year or two once traffic is at 'normal' levels again. The CEO keeps banging on about how the size of the company will need to reflect the amount of flying going on. He seems to conveniently forget the fact we've been chronically understaffed for the past 5 years (overtime is the only thing that's stopped enormous delays over the summers) and are now probably at the correct level of staffing for what's expected to be normal traffic when all this is over. At the end of the day the funding model is flawed. The company can't grow and shrink at a moments notice to match current traffic as management types want it too. Of course none of us expect them to do the correct thing. We'll be picking up the pieces from the rash decisions currently being made for quite some time.
Twelve years retired - & nothing much changes ! Mind you, it was a lot different when I started. But, that was the good old DoTI. The rot started slowly when the CAA got into its stride & gathered pace when NATS became a “sort of” private/public company. I had left well before that, leaving some wonderful characters, ATCOS & ATCAs behind. We will never see that lot again - more’s the pity !
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There is no reason why a re-nationalised NATS couldn't/shouldn't be kept entirely separate from the regulator. Times have changed since the PP was initiated in the late 90's.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did come after the operational staff a la BA but fortunately ATCOs are not quite so readily available or easy to train as a pilot. I'm not sure I'd want to be an ATSA at present though
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Easy to train
ATCO’s could be fairly easy to obtain and train if there are plenty that have been made redundant. Just like a pilot that doesn’t have to go back to their basic training and do a PPL an ex ATCO returning to the same unit perhaps would take a relatively short time to revalidate after a year or so off. I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to this but let’s not be too complacent and let’s try to be prepared for all the arguments and possible threats that may come our way.
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So similar to NATS but without the crucial need to make a profit or pay dividends.
There is no reason why a re-nationalised NATS couldn't/shouldn't be kept entirely separate from the regulator. Times have changed since the PP was initiated in the late 90's.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did come after the operational staff a la BA but fortunately ATCOs are not quite so readily available or easy to train as a pilot. I'm not sure I'd want to be an ATSA at present though
There is no reason why a re-nationalised NATS couldn't/shouldn't be kept entirely separate from the regulator. Times have changed since the PP was initiated in the late 90's.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did come after the operational staff a la BA but fortunately ATCOs are not quite so readily available or easy to train as a pilot. I'm not sure I'd want to be an ATSA at present though
Out of interest, what do ATSAs do since Swanwick switched to EFPS?
"Unfortunately Corbyn didn't win the last election, "
A very large majority of the British population disagree with you..
A very large majority of the British population disagree with you..
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ATCO’s could be fairly easy to obtain and train if there are plenty that have been made redundant. Just like a pilot that doesn’t have to go back to their basic training and do a PPL an ex ATCO returning to the same unit perhaps would take a relatively short time to revalidate after a year or so off. I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to this but let’s not be too complacent and let’s try to be prepared for all the arguments and possible threats that may come our way.
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Paying people for work that is not required just in case they're required 2 years from now is an interesting concept.
What if it's 3 years? Or maybe just 1? That's the difficulty. No one really knows which way this is going.
What if it's 3 years? Or maybe just 1? That's the difficulty. No one really knows which way this is going.
may work if they return to their previous unit/sector, but an experienced ATCO going to a busy new unit will take around a year to qualify and many years to be experienced. You can’t just switch on the taps and train all of the shortfall either only one trainee at a time can be in position and the qualified ATCOs also need to have a go sometimes to keep their recency. A 10% staff shortfall could take a year or two to replace even using experience trainees. If we’re looking at traffic returning towards capacity then we’d better start recruiting now before redundancies have even been “offered”. Most ATC units were quite short-staffed before COVID19, relying on overtime to make up the shortfall. See also units with a change of ANSP contract taking years to return to safe staffing levels. NATS also has a retirement bulge looming in part caused by a historic short-sighted staffing cycles.
