Watch it all unfold in close to real time on the Eurocontrol NOP - if you can put up with the appalling interface, that is!

Unlikely unless you are in the airline ops side of things...

I was based in France for about a year, and the one thing you can say is that the French workers stand up for themselves, and I respect them for that.

Here in the UK we have all lost our :mad: it seems, and just accept whatever :mad: is thrown at us. Also, employment legislation has been changed to prevent widespread strikes.


As far as the country being able to afford it, how is it in the UK that we are all being told there's no money for better wages or NHS or fixing the roads, or our pensions, yet we are financing wars all over the place, a 32billion pound train set nobody actually needs, paying massive salaries to all the management and CEO's, massive expenses being paid to MP's and bonuses being paid to the bankers who got the country into the mess in the first place????!!!!


Sorry, rant over - I'm just going to have a lie down.

The French ATC are afraid of this new Euro Control ATC system because they would be the biggest loosers in any amalgamation of European ATC - and they know it.

French ATC still cannot speak English properly, and would therefore be branded as the dummies of the new Euro Control system. Buoyed up by Gaulic gingoism the French thought they were sooo clever in maintaining a firm foundation in French, but did not notice that even Spanish and Italian ATC were beginning to outclass them in every respect.

But now the French are faced with reality - open competition with controllers from all over Europe, whose English is so superior it makes the French look like infants. In such a system, it is obvious that French controllers will be marginalised to the sidelines, and if they are lucky they will be given control of Latvian and Maltese airspace.

French ATC have finally understood that the writing is on the wall for their poor comprehension and impenetrable pronunciation, and are therefore desperately striking to keep their outdated little French-language cartel intact. For safety's sake, lets hope they do not succeed.

Quote:

"Best ever ATC instruction one can get:
"Contact London on XYZ (freq.)" ...in a French accent!!!"

Amen to that.

Even worse, have you ever tried to go into the small regional French airports? I seem to remember we were 'vent derrier ' (wind up the arse) and 'tap de ban' (no idea of the literal translation there). Most of the ATC control was done via braille.

Sadly seems as though most flights are cancelled. Contrary to the info this morning that the main airports only were closed, around 1130 easyjet cancelled Montpellier as well...fortunately ten minutes before I left home to take my daughter there.
As to the military stopping flying to help the situation - just had a mirage on a low level cross country pass overhead.

Military still flying low level, they agreed to minimise the higher level activity.

Only crumb of good news is that Thursday's strike has been cancelled so all this should be over by 0400 utc Thursday morning.

Not looking forward to tomorrow though.

some things never change
 

Like the Brits thinking their ATC is state of the art.

SilverStrata, lets see your employer try to bring in workforce from Cyprus and Malta for half your salary and see how you like it :ok:

Timex - Dundee.

I stand corrected. But I do remember that is was the most rediculous example of union-inspired corporate bankruptcy - which resulted not in higher employee wages, but no wages at all. It was a classic demonstration of how union concentration on worker benefits, instead of unions concentrating on the health of the company, bankrupted not only Timex, but much of UK PLC.
Timex strike - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just as Timex succummed to union stupidity after 47 years, so will the French ATC. (Just as the American controllers comitted economic suicide back in 1981.)

And as to the poster who suggested this was all about employing half-price controllers from Cyprus and Malta this is not so. I am sure that controllers from across the richest nations of Europe will still hold most of the top posts in the new ATC system, and few if any wages will be cut. If French ATC fear wage cuts, I would suggest that their wages must be out of all proportion to the median wage in Europe. In other words, they have been fleecing every passenger who goes to or crosses over France, and deriving French wealth on the back of the long-suffering passengers of Europe. I think there will be few supporters for that highwayman-like position.

French ATC are paid 4K NET salary after 10years in the job, depending on which airport they operate. That's 30-50% less than in some other western countries, where the service can hardly be compared.
Other unions are joining in the movement tomorrow apparently. Even heard the UK ATC plus another 9 countries!!
Oh and guess what, apparently they've won support from the French and German (!!!) government

In a lighter vein, this reminds me of a hilarious after dinner talk in 1981 by retired air traffic controller David Gunson: "What goes up might come down". In it, among other targets, he parodies French air traffic controllers going on strike. Well worth trying to find a copy.

There you are! I've seen him live, he is brilliant.

The bit about the French starts at about 2'30".

Why it makes the news that the French ATC is going on strike is beyond me, it would be more newsworthy that they are not on strike.

The French and German Government this evening backed up the French ATC union in their demands to postpone the EU Commission plan to liberalise ATC in Europe.
The strike is over, they won their case, ( at least for now ) respect.

When Luftansa crews went on strike last year to block their employer from hiring low cost replacements (via Lufthansa Italia) they also won. Now everyone is still nicely paid good professional wages in the LH group.
So yes, it pays to resist and use the right of strike to defend certain beliefs.

As to te benefits of liberalisation and market freedom :
I remember a time not so long ago where UK was building superb advanced both civil and military aircraft, great cars ( my generation dreamt about MGBs and Jaguars) and British aiways was the best airline in the world.
Then they got Margret Tatcher, got rid of Unions, now they fly in Airbus and Boeing , drive Toyotas and Peugeots, ,and half the population is struggling to survive on low wages . Great achivements indeed.

What, those 1940 radios still work, don't they ? :E

What's the average holding at biggin nowadays ? :p

So the usually well-informed ATC specialist who told me €20,000 monthly for 100 working days a year was telling a HUGE porky pie, obviously.

The bottom line is that no group of shysters in any essential service should be allowed to have this sort of power.

I don't agree, the bottom part of workers had only the strike as a power and in the last year's states are tying to cancel this right! I admire France and the air traffic controllers, they still want to fight and not only say yes and take down our pants to those politics that destroyed Europe. There are many young people which can't even work because there are not jobs!!! They should thank liberalism, they should thank Europe, they should thank privatisation. I'm a young man, becoming air traffic controller (not in France) but I hate the European community and like me thousand of young people in all Europe, we think we deserve more passion for our countries, that each country has the right to survive and fight and not become the slave of anyone else! I see the privatisation and the union of the European sky, AGAIN, the persue of the cut down cost, like happen in the last 5 years and the results are catastrophic! Air traffic services need some changes for sure but still under the control of each country because I'm fed up with the continuous control of few over all the Europe just in name of liberalism and stop compare us with united States, we are not them, they are not us, we are 27 different countries with 27 different cultures!!
The Single European Sky should focus on safety and technology, first priority, than on the optimisation of the ANSP, standardise airspace within all countries, direct routes and in the creation of the fewest centers in each country, I think this is the first steps than we might reconsider a different plan in the next 30 years if need!

Taking just the aviation industry as an example, if an airline's workers go on strike people are still left with other airline alternatives. ATC is a different matter. It's an essential service and any disruption results in millions of people going about their lawful and necessary business being affected.

Anyone who wants to take on this vital job must be made from the beginning to understand and accept that they are not permitted to strike or take any other form of industrial action. If they don't like that then they can bugger off and do something else.

ayroplain,

No.

In order to prevent the return of the Victorian mill houses, it is a vital right to be able to withdraw your labour.

People paid a high price to gain this right.

The only real credible exception are workers who protect the health or safety of others (eg doctors and police). ATCOs are simply causing commercial chaos, so no issue there.