NATS Redundancies
 

All contractors were served notice months ago, but now the company is discussing compulsory redundancies and the union is taking a shallow view, due to the bullying culture that is beginning to surface.

https://www.pcs.org.uk/latest-update...with-employers

Bloody'ell not ATC also, the UK government has really played this pandemic badly and the 14 day quarantine has scared the airlines into threatening more redundancies and the public not to travel. We need a vaccine asap to get the aviation world going again.

that is capitalism and deregulation my friend....

The Oxford teams vaccine trials looks promising, and provided there are no hiccups, it should be available later this year.
Prof Sarah Gilbert one of the leading lights.

Nine other teams also working on vaccine trials, so the odds may well be much better than 50:50.

It is puzzling how different the response to Covid-19 is compared to the continent, where governments spend billions on direct aviation programs, not to mention the fully government funded furlough programs until the end of 2021 for all businesses. Which allows stuff like one month furlough, one month full work which keeps aviation workers current in their job and saves the companies half their wages.

Ultimately NATS is now a commercial business and as such has to return a profit to the shareholders. If your customers have decreased their own business dramatically and as a result you are struggling to raise revenue then redundancies and cutbacks are inevitable. The airlines that are making massive changes at present are a pertinent example and I feel desperately sorry for those affected.

In my humble opinion, national infrastructure like ATC should be a government role. What happens if NATS goes under? What happens if the revenue incoming is drastically less than company outgoings, not just for a few months but potentially a few years?

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. I have no idea of how many they are wishing to sack. Did NATS not go through this process a few years ago with airport controllers? IIRC they got rid of quite a few not that long ago.

Yeah, wake me up when they have got one. I could do with a long sleep !

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.

Staff costs ( from last years returns ) were running at near enough 1B per annum.

Exactly this. I have flown all over Europe and in the USA but would say that UK ATC is the best and most professional I have worked with. For them to also having to join this constant race to the bottom is heartbreaking. The logical conclusion of capitalism and deregulation indeed.
At least the winds of change are blowing all over the world, I suggest as aviation professionals we start joining and start showing a bit of unity and backbone.

Of course it’s not just the airlines that are the customers and NATS also has a requirement through its license to keep airspace open regardless of the number of users.
A few examples could be police or medivac helicopters, survey flights, military, the royal family and government ministers.
Which means you need a minimum number of “bums on seats” regardless of the number of flights.
If flights reduce by 80% you cannot simply reduce the number of controllers by same without closing vital airspace and breaching the company’s operating license.

Which is why, as escaped ATCO said, this vital piece of national infrastructure should not be run as a for profit, commercial company.

escaped.atco The last tranche of operational staff voluntary redundancies was around 5 or 6 years ago and those were across the business, both at airfields and the centres.

It does not surprise me that they are looking to withdraw from the current redundancy agreement as it is very generous, so they will be looking to reduce that bill if and when staff are made redundant.

NATS currently has very little income as Eurocontrol has allowed airlines to defer en-route ATC charges.

NATS have also temporarily stopped paying into CAAPS (the pension scheme), at the agreement of the Trustees.

I feel for all my old colleagues who do a fabulous job every day.

The one consolation is that the government cannot afford to let NATS go under, however I fear the cuts are likely to be very painful.

I wouldn't bank on that......

This Govt is probably the most anti-aviation industry Govt we've ever had.

Rumour has it the Willie Walsh is taking over as CEO of NATS when he leaves IAG.

Is this just a humorous comment, or a serious suggestion ?

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. It's not a race to the bottom, it's out of there and down the sewer to the sea. It would be catastrophic to the UK.

Doubt it’s nothing more than trolling. Walsh would have have a clear conflict of interest. It would be akin to insider trading. As the government retains a “golden share”, they would not allow this to happen.

I’ll back that up with the fact that the poster hasn’t voiced an opinion, on anything, in 6 years. So, troll it is.

In as much as I believe that the WW remark is just a troll, what I will be interested in is the career of the current NATS CEO. If or when the current chief carries out a cull and if it is perceived as being unfair or otherwise amongst the remaining workforce, it will make ongoing workforce cooperation very difficult if not impossible. Workers will realise they are simply an asset to be used and disposed as and when deemed necessary by the company, this realisation doesn't exactly produce workplace harmony or a happy atmosphere.

Someone that carries out a massive chopping session may well find that they themselves will have to voluntarily move on and for fresh faces to come in and try and pick up the remaining pieces of morale in order to put what's left of the company back together again - not an easy task.

It's always easy to manage a company when it's all going well and trends are upwards, you really see true personalities when things turn sour. Words are cheap, actions always much louder.

I’m interested to find out what the shareholders expect in the short term ? As NATS have arranged, yet another, pension holiday, there has to be some give and take regards the financial fallout. What NATS don’t appear to be doing, is conveying anything publicly since March. That troubles me a great deal, as they are quite a unique industry who have never seemed to master communication to the world in which they dominate ( by their own definition ).