Sun Apr 18, 2021 8:17 pm
#1841277
...have the UK air traffic control service you would wish for.
Having just seen this on a different thread...
...please excuse the indulgence of my posting this from the Gatwick ATS thread as a stand-alone. Possibly an indulgence too far, in which case no issues from me if it disappears, but it is relevant to the future of air traffic service provision in the UK, and how said provision is unlikely to see much if any improvement in the offering to GA going forward. Indeed the pessimistic would probably say if you think it’s poor now...
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NATS Solutions (new Gatwick aerodrome ATS provider from late 2022) is a subsidiary of NATS Services and was incorporated circa 2014 to transfer into the NATS fold staff from some other smaller, previously non NATS, units and operates with different staff T&Cs to Services and NERL.
What with this move to use Solutions at Gatwick rather than Services, plus staff in the wider NERL/Services world recently entering a formal trade dispute with the company as it chooses to walk away unilaterally from a number of employee/employer industrial agreements, there are interesting times ahead.
Does any of this mean anything to GA pilots here though?
Yes, it does. The chances of you ever seeing the integrated seamless UK ATC service you would like GA to have fair and equal access to are further less than zero than they’ve ever been. The business model of the main air traffic control service provider the country has chosen to operate is based purely upon minimising costs to the airlines whilst maximising profit to the shareholders (who also include the airlines). As it now seeks to start tackling more aggressively, in an industrial relations sense, its biggest cost (staff), services to users on the periphery of the airline core, except where minimally required by law or licence, seem somewhat superfluous.
UK ATC and the principal of equal access to all operation of what should be a freely available piece of national infrastructure, the airspace above you, is broken. It’s so broken and fragmented that the biggest ANSP in the country is itself now operating services in full or in part by utilising at least four different subsidiary or partner company entities that I can think of, never mind all the other providers available. How, within such a structure, can there ever be anything other than a disjointed and disconnected mess?
It’s a joke.
Having just seen this on a different thread...
T67M wrote:If only we had integrated air traffic control services in the UK working together to expedite ALL flights rather than a whole collection of groups saying "gerouttaMYairspace".
...please excuse the indulgence of my posting this from the Gatwick ATS thread as a stand-alone. Possibly an indulgence too far, in which case no issues from me if it disappears, but it is relevant to the future of air traffic service provision in the UK, and how said provision is unlikely to see much if any improvement in the offering to GA going forward. Indeed the pessimistic would probably say if you think it’s poor now...
—-
NATS Solutions (new Gatwick aerodrome ATS provider from late 2022) is a subsidiary of NATS Services and was incorporated circa 2014 to transfer into the NATS fold staff from some other smaller, previously non NATS, units and operates with different staff T&Cs to Services and NERL.
What with this move to use Solutions at Gatwick rather than Services, plus staff in the wider NERL/Services world recently entering a formal trade dispute with the company as it chooses to walk away unilaterally from a number of employee/employer industrial agreements, there are interesting times ahead.
Does any of this mean anything to GA pilots here though?
Yes, it does. The chances of you ever seeing the integrated seamless UK ATC service you would like GA to have fair and equal access to are further less than zero than they’ve ever been. The business model of the main air traffic control service provider the country has chosen to operate is based purely upon minimising costs to the airlines whilst maximising profit to the shareholders (who also include the airlines). As it now seeks to start tackling more aggressively, in an industrial relations sense, its biggest cost (staff), services to users on the periphery of the airline core, except where minimally required by law or licence, seem somewhat superfluous.
UK ATC and the principal of equal access to all operation of what should be a freely available piece of national infrastructure, the airspace above you, is broken. It’s so broken and fragmented that the biggest ANSP in the country is itself now operating services in full or in part by utilising at least four different subsidiary or partner company entities that I can think of, never mind all the other providers available. How, within such a structure, can there ever be anything other than a disjointed and disconnected mess?
It’s a joke.