Moral decay and greedy politicians

I just read an article so good that I have to share it with you, It speaks about the moral decay at the top of society in comparison with the events that affected London and other cities in the UK last week.
I can't hel believing that in Spain things may not be so obvious, but that is merely because the Press is much more closely controlled and because the Judiciary isn't an independent power. Here, politicians privatize huge companies and help thenselves to hefty commisions. How can you understand that the Barajas Airport improvement budget was initially 1.750 million euros and ended at 6.200. Just an example of a corrupt system. Here goes my promised article:

The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom

By Peter Oborne Politics Last updated: August 11th, 2011

4520 Comments Comment on this article

Tottenham ablaze: the riots began early on Sunday (Photo: AP)

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.

But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.

I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.

It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.

Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off.

Yet we celebrate people who live empty lives like this. A few weeks ago, I noticed an item in a newspaper saying that the business tycoon Sir Richard Branson was thinking of moving his headquarters to Switzerland. This move was represented as a potential blow to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, because it meant less tax revenue.

I couldn’t help thinking that in a sane and decent world such a move would be a blow to Sir Richard, not the Chancellor. People would note that a prominent and wealthy businessman was avoiding British tax and think less of him. Instead, he has a knighthood and is widely feted. The same is true of the brilliant retailer Sir Philip Green. Sir Philip’s businesses could never survive but for Britain’s famous social and political stability, our transport system to shift his goods and our schools to educate his workers.

Yet Sir Philip, who a few years ago sent an extraordinary £1 billion dividend offshore, seems to have little intention of paying for much of this. Why does nobody get angry or hold him culpable? I know that he employs expensive tax lawyers and that everything he does is legal, but he surely faces ethical and moral questions just as much as does a young thug who breaks into one of Sir Philip’s shops and steals from it?

Our politicians – standing sanctimoniously on their hind legs in the Commons yesterday – are just as bad. They have shown themselves prepared to ignore common decency and, in some cases, to break the law. David Cameron is happy to have some of the worst offenders in his Cabinet. Take the example of Francis Maude, who is charged with tackling public sector waste – which trade unions say is a euphemism for waging war on low‑paid workers. Yet Mr Maude made tens of thousands of pounds by breaching the spirit, though not the law, surrounding MPs’ allowances.

A great deal has been made over the past few days of the greed of the rioters for consumer goods, not least by Rotherham MP Denis MacShane who accurately remarked, “What the looters wanted was for a few minutes to enter the world of Sloane Street consumption.” This from a man who notoriously claimed £5,900 for eight laptops. Of course, as an MP he obtained these laptops legally through his expenses.

Yesterday, the veteran Labour MP Gerald Kaufman asked the Prime Minister to consider how these rioters can be “reclaimed” by society. Yes, this is indeed the same Gerald Kaufman who submitted a claim for three months’ expenses totalling £14,301.60, which included £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen television.

Or take the Salford MP Hazel Blears, who has been loudly calling for draconian action against the looters. I find it very hard to make any kind of ethical distinction between Blears’s expense cheating and tax avoidance, and the straight robbery carried out by the looters.

The Prime Minister showed no sign that he understood that something stank about yesterday’s Commons debate. He spoke of morality, but only as something which applies to the very poor: “We will restore a stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.” He appeared not to grasp that this should apply to the rich and powerful as well.

The tragic truth is that Mr Cameron is himself guilty of failing this test. It is scarcely six weeks since he jauntily turned up at the News International summer party, even though the media group was at the time subject to not one but two police investigations. Even more notoriously, he awarded a senior Downing Street job to the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, even though he knew at the time that Coulson had resigned after criminal acts were committed under his editorship. The Prime Minister excused his wretched judgment by proclaiming that “everybody deserves a second chance”. It was very telling yesterday that he did not talk of second chances as he pledged exemplary punishment for the rioters and looters.

These double standards from Downing Street are symptomatic of widespread double standards at the very top of our society. It should be stressed that most people (including, I know, Telegraph readers) continue to believe in honesty, decency, hard work, and putting back into society at least as much as they take out.

But there are those who do not. Certainly, the so-called feral youth seem oblivious to decency and morality. But so are the venal rich and powerful – too many of our bankers, footballers, wealthy businessmen and politicians.

Of course, most of them are smart and wealthy enough to make sure that they obey the law. That cannot be said of the sad young men and women, without hope or aspiration, who have caused such mayhem and chaos over the past few days. But the rioters have this defence: they are just following the example set by senior and respected figures in society. Let’s bear in mind that many of the youths in our inner cities have never been trained in decent values. All they have ever known is barbarism. Our politicians and bankers, in sharp contrast, tend to have been to good schools and universities and to have been given every opportunity in life.

Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates.

The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.

Historical insight: end of middle class

Sometimes you would like to go further in the understanding of certain issues, and it seems hard to dissect the forces or tensions between markets, social classes, balance sheets or trends. Fortunately Michael Moore has given me a huge hand by publishing this article, the day before yesterday. Everything else falls in naturally.

Early retirement: the new picture.

My friend L. became an ATCO in 1974. Ever since she started she was promised that she would be allowed to retire from her shift activity after a certain number of  years. The latest agreement allowed her to retire -keeping her pay- at 52 after 30 years of shifts, or at 55 after 17 years. She could have done either, but she decided to stay: her working conditions and rest were such that her night-time recovery was OK, and she still enjoyed her job and could do it safely. 

Recently there has been a change in timetables (once again, imposed). Mornings start at 6.45 or 7.30 instead of 8. Evenings end at 10.30 or 11.30 instead of 10. Under the new conditions, she now wants to leave -her pay halved- as she is over 60.

L. has decided that she has had enough, and she should be able to retire. She deserves it and she has already done her share. Aena has said that 62 years of age is enough. But they have told L. that, considering she is still operational, she can't go. 

Mr Lema still hasn't admitted there is a severe shortage of ATCO's. Eurocontrol has. Even the Press has. But Mr Lema won't. Conditions are so bad in Spain that colleagues are fleeing to Germany, Switzerland, even Bahrein. Others are reducing their hours, according to legislation, to care for their children or their ageing parents. 

Aena has to keep as many ATCO's on board as possible. But the ship is still sinking. Spain is (i would add arguably, but I believe it's beyond argument) now the most understaffed, undertrained, under-rested and overworked airspace in Europe. It beholds more delays and near misses than anywhere else. I dare not say any more, lest I be accused of scaremongering…

Phone hacking

I know this post is long overdue. Have you heard about the phone hacking scandal in UK? It's made a one hundred and sixty eight year old paper disappear, a police chief resign, quite a few Press bosses dump their careers, and it's even shaken the ground Prime Minister Cameron treads upon.
Phone hacking happened to Spanish air traffic controllers last year. My own phone used to receive calls from non existing numbers. The battery suddenly heated up unexpectedly (meaning the phone was being used as a remote microphone). All of this happened before phone tapping was finally authorised by a Judge.
The person responsible for this is now the PSOE candidate for the next General Election in Spain, due for 20th November.

Forty seven near misses.

The Performance Review report for 2010 has just been published. It highlights one main point regarding safety, but first let me tell you, to my knowledge, how the reports are done. If you are really interested you can check the Eurocontrol PRR 2010, available on the internet. I am obviously only going to disclose the important data from my (admittedly biased) position.
That said, the data Eurocontrol publishes has previously been forwarded by the Air Navigation Service Providers, they usually follow Eurocontrol criteria for category classification, and they are also usually backed by the expertise of the national safety supervising authority (in Spain, AESA, Agencia Española de Seguridad Aérea). There are occasional discrepancies from the general rule, but basically the data is perfectly comparable.
Regarding the classification criteria, suffice it to say that, to avoid being too technical, they are class A (near collision), class B (Safety not guaranteed), and others. Either of the two former are very serious incidents. Of course, where humans operate the system, mistakes are prone to occur. So I’ll just give you the data for class A incidents for countries comparable to Spain and let you arrive at your own conclusions.
France ---14
Germany --- 4
UK (Nats) --- 0
SPAIN --- 47
I was going to leave it there, but Aena adds a line saying that none of the Spanish near collisions was due to ATM (Air Traffic Management). Yes, I also wondered at first whether pilots had just gone berserk and had decided to ram into each other. Obviously, our magnificent management staff had just decided that having Spanish controllers work half as much more than British or German controllers, or calling them for duty on their day off (compulsory attendance, remember), or cancelling their holidays once their plane tickets and hotels were booked, or leaving them for years on end without touching a simulator, or allowing one day’s rest out of each six; or endorsing their English level, not because they had had enough training but because they have never been entangled in a language related incident before, had nothing to do with their professional capacity.
Fortunately, we know the figures and we are doing our best to improve safety, but it isn’t easy. I’ll write about that soon.

Traffic Regulations

I am aware that most of my readers are aviation specialists, but some are not. Therefore I apologise for some layman explanations I sometimes prefer to make.
Air traffic control basically is no more than the surveillance of traffic flow to ensure that safety is always guaranteed along the flight path. National airspaces are covered by different companies (ANSPs), usually just one per country. Then they are divided into different regions (FIR, Flight Information Regions). Each one of these is usually managed from one workplace (Control Centre), which, in turn, is subdivided into different sectors, each one managed by one team of controllers, comprising from one to three ATCOs. Sometimes (in low traffic periods, such as night-times) these sectors are merged, forming a new sector, with a different name.
Each sector (or resulting sector) has a declared maximum overall capacity, which has theoretically been determined through workload studies, considering optimum conditions. When being licensed, controllers train in a simulator that reproduces the normal traffic flow. The trainees commence with a low traffic exercise and increase their skill by increasing traffic until the maximum capacity (or even further in simulators) and then contingencies are introduced). These could be anything from a radio failure to aircraft in an emergency, bad weather, ash clouds, malfunctioning equipment such as radar or radio beacons, etc. It could also be industrial action or, even fatigued ATCOs.
Controllers are not endorsed until they prove they can manage any situation that could crop up. As you may have guessed, many of these contingencies would reduce the maximum capacity of any given sector where real traffic is concerned.
That’s where regulations enter the picture. Obviously a traffic in emergency (as the name suggest) appears suddenly, and controllers have to improvise. If proper training has been undertaken, improvisation will be kept to a minimum.
But poor weather can usually be forecast, and therefore measures can be taken to reduce sector capacity. These will involve delaying take-off times or modifying flight plan levels or even routes. These are the so called regulations. They can also apply in conjuction with other circumstances (on the job training, illness, equipment failure…)
The local Flow management unit works closely together with Eurocontrol Central Flow Management Unit. Sophisticated computers calculate how each glitch in different airspaces affects any given flight, and calculates, with amazing precision, how much traffic will affect certain sector at a given time.
Where I work, in Madrid, the local flow management unit is situated in a corner of the operations room, and supervisors and the head can easily access the data (workload patterns) that flow management officers have at their disposal. But that is about to be a thing of the past.
Te flow unit is going to be removed from the operations room, to complicate matters for supervisors and controllers, to make it harder to regulate when the weather gets tough, to avoid controllers being aware of their impending workload. Once again, Efficiency before Safety.
Sadly, even considering that Spain has a pretty poor aviation safety record, the authorities can afford loss of lives, but not of money. Even so, they’re mucking it all up, as I will show in my next post.

Ryanair to leave Spain

That's what they claim. Unless they're relieved from paying fines and compensation for not complying with Spanish regulations. As with most Ryanair announcements, I don't believe a word. We'll see...

Thanks for reading.

The glorious land of golden opportunities

So you're thinking about coming to Spain to become an Air Traffic Controller? Maybe you're thinking about imparting some lessons at Senasa or the Universidad Camilo José Cela, where Air Traffic Controller lessons are available.
Be aware of what awaits you. If you work as an ATCO here, your wages or working hours, or retirement age are in the hands of the government. Literally. We used to negotiate our conditions, but a Royal Decree (contrary to the Spanish Constitution) came in giving all the power to Aena's management team. Our new bargaining "agreement" which has been imposed, is available on internet, albeit in Spanish: check it HERE
It's a well known fact that Mr Lema Devesa, Aena's Director General President, is a personal friend to Mr José Blanco, the Development Minister who signed all the new regulations that stripped us of our basic rights. So there's no logical reason to think that this wouldn't happen to you.
If you decide to work with an Air Traffic Control Academy, you might find that it isn't even certified. Therefore, there may be legal prosecution from alumni -as I understand is the case- claiming not only the return of their fees, but also compensation for misleading ads or brochures.
By the way, at this point you may wish to check the fees HERE
A colleague's daughter has decided that training in Spain is basically rubbish, and she has gone to Skyguide in Switzerland, where she does a proper 15 month course (instead of our useless 22 weeks!) and earns a decent wage instead of having to dish out fifty grand without any guarantee of work at the end.
You might be inclined to thinking that all I say is basically crap in order to defend our "privileged" position, as has been portrayed in the media, and that you could always refer to the Spanish Judiciary to solve any dispute and introduce Justice. Just check what has happened to British buyers of Spanish property, as reported in The Daily Telegraph. I hope seeing is believing: Here's the report
This sort of action by the incompetent Spanish Government is what led Spanish controllers to the anger which led to the events of the past 3rd and 4th of December, when the Spanish Government, through Aena, closed Spanish airspace to create even greater rage against Spanish ATCO's. Why?
More about that in a future post

Imaginative rostering

Well informed sources tell me that in a few units, including Valencia and Palma, new working schedules are to be introduced. Basically, they'll be six consecutive working days, ending with a night shift. After the sleeping day, there'll be just one day off, and then back to the next six.
Of course, under the new regulations, we have no say. So if you fly to the east of Spain this summer, be considerate to your pilots if they suddenly give the plane a beating in order to avoid disaster amongst knackered controllers.

Is efficiency always the way forward?

I've previously made my posts too long, so I'll try to make this one short!
Air Traffic Control is based on Safety, Orderly and Expeditious flow. We accept no compromise on the former, The other two come in variable amounts according to qualification, experience and sometimes even guts of the controller.
A year ago we could sustain heavy work with minimum separation between aircraft. And provide lots of direct routes on top of that. It represents a larger effort from the controller, but it's worth it. I used to save more time and money on fuel than I earned.
Then came José Blanco, decided to change everything: more hours, less rest, more traffic, less vacation, compulsory immediate attendance, less pay; all with no previous advice. The circumstance became unbearable. 70% pay reduction in my case. This obviously brought a struggle to pay bills. I'm not disputing the need for it, but surely there had to be a different way.
I personally spent five months off, on a stress related medical leave. I'm still troubled balancing my life. I would prefer to be able to focus completely on my job.
Satisfied controllers are always going to be more efficient controllers, there's no way around it.
Or is there? What will the next step be? Pay per plane per hour? Will they create a struggle to cram as many aircraft as possible into the smallest space in order to increase efficiency? What about Safety? We've just gone crazy!

EUROCONTROL

The European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation.
The European Organisation for What?
Check their website. You will probably be amazed or surprised to see that "safety" only appears -title excepted- once on the home page of the website. I'm neither.
Eurocontrol has grown from being what it probably was initially, fifty years ago, into a pressure group from aircraft manufacturers, airline operators, indeed the industry in general and even Governments, with the purpose, first and foremost, of increasing efficiency and the new great word, "sustainability".
So, what is sustainable? Whatever makes more money. No interest whatsoever in the Safety side of the sector. That's just taken for granted. The decision makers are absolutely convinced that the appearance of new technologies such as TCAS guarantees Safety. They need to look closer into this. Meanwhile, why bother, let's move on to the ultimate goal: money making. I already wrote about fuel saving: no further comment.
I can admit I'm biased. I still can't understand why buses don't have conductors. Maybe someone can prove me wrong, but has the bus travel sector gained anything from the disappearance of conductors, apart from making more money?. Where does this lead us to?. Is everything going to veer into the so called New World Order, in which more money is going to reside in fewer hands, middle classes tend to disappear and workers will see their conditions endlessly deteriorate?
Sorry for straying off from my object: Eurocontrol. Let's remember "safety" is mentioned once.
That one time refers to Safety Management. Click on it.(Activities, bottom of page). You'll eventually find :
"support to the implementation and operation of safety management systems and application of best practices in the field of human factors".

Human factors? Do I need to believe that not a single one of the workers at Eurocontrol knew of the havoc that was created by the Spanish Government last year? How many people work at Eurocontrol? Do they think there was no Safety issue whatsoever? Or perhaps, on the other hand, they thought efficiency was being pursued and presumed it would be better to refrain from acting?
Not a single word has been uttered from Eurocontrol to defend collective bargaining of working conditions and wages, abiding of Law, compliance with regulations regarding rest time, rostering practice, and many other human factor issues which have clearly affected Safety and continue to affect efficiency in the Spanish skies.
Sadly, Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, kept silent because their concern is mainly making sure everything remains efficient.
Prove me wrong. Maybe Eurocontrol spoke to my deaf ears. Send me the links or articles published by Eurocontrol to defend their safety culture in Spain last year. I really hope you can.

Arbitration: first contact

I just had a quick read through the arbitration agreement, published this morning. It’s called the II Collective Bargaining Agreement. But it’s neither collective, nor has much bargaining been included. And it certainly is not an agreement: it’s an imposition.
All the media are reporting that it means a reduction in the hours to work, now 1500. There is a provision for only 1500 to be scheduled, but different articles within the ruling also admit a maximum of 1670 hours of aeronautical activity, plus a further 40 for training, plus up to 80 for overtime. I’m pleased at finally seeing a provision for training hours. But why just 40? And furthermore, why are they further reduced, to 25 in 2012 and 20 in 2013? Is that the importance conceded to training? And the hours are even more than before.
Regarding English and it’s own training, the provision is for Aena to hand out and finance the training, which is to be carried out in one’s spare time. I haven’t yet seen if a decision has been made over controllers’ fate if their exams are failed, but I still think that all essential training for the workplace should be carried out and supervised within the workplace and considered working hours
I’ve also calculatedt how close I am to the 200.000 euros “average” yearly pay promised. From my position I should be comfortably on top of that, but according to my situation in the salary tables, I’m just about on 60 per cent of that, considering before tax numbers. Of course amidst the present crisis it’s hard to complain, but it does prove that the media campaign to demonise controllers is still going strong. And far too many lies are still being told.
It seems like there may be a large quantity of money spared by the company to use discretionally.
This was just a very speedy report. After a couple of days I’ll let you know if things are looking any less gloomy. So far it looks like it's going to be even worse than it was last year. I hope someone can prove me wrong.

The arbitrator's job

His name is Manuel Pimentel, and he’s a former Work Minister from the conservative Government of José María Aznar. He faces a tough decision. Aena (our employer) and Usca (our union) have been unable to reach an agreement after over a year of negotiation. It’s easy to say why. Basically there was some discrepancy between the different positions. The company wanted us to be slaves working h24 with resting rights cropped, and everything else subject to “the provider’s obligation to guarantee continuity of service”. This was interpreted as 100% capacity service, when everyone should know, by now, that there is a shortage of air traffic controllers in Spain.
What about the Union’s requests. If you consider that the agreements between British, French, Portuguese or German controllers were laid upon the table and Usca would accept signing any of them, it doesn’t seem like our position was too radical.
So, what’s going to happen? Will Mr Pimentel refer to before February 5th last, when the agreement between Usca and Aena was legitimate, or will he allow all the illegal Royal Decrees imposed since then to influence his final ruling?
I’m afraid the end result, whether the whole system is going to work, depends not only on this, but also upon whether Aena has enough capacity to implement the changes and comply with it’s part of the Mr Pimentel’s arbtrarion award. Personally, I feel they haven’t and things are going to be rough regardless of the arbitration outcome.

Thank Mr Blanco for the new ATM efficiency!

I’ve been working as a controller for about thirteen years. Until a couple of years ago, in Madrid (my closest example) we used to try to get as many aircraft as possible onto the left runway (shortest taxi). Until a couple of years ago all of us endeavoured to shorten routes as much as possible. Indeed, each traffic –as we say- arriving at Madrid Barajas International Airport probably saved more than ten minutes on average if we take flying and taxi time into account. I have no reason to suppose events didn’t happen likewise in the rest os Spain.
This meant a huge effort by controllers. But we are well aware that each flying minute might mean 50 kilos (or around 25 pounds sterling) of fuel. It was a time of happy crews and passengers. And we, the controllers, ended our workday with a grimace of satisfaction after a very beneficial day of work.
Since then we’ve had to read circulars about noise reduction compelling us to even out traffic between the runways, reprimands from Flow Control trying to ensure that routes are not shortened lest overcrowding occur further along the line, letters by operations managers, or even by Eurocontrol, underlining the need to attentively follow the flight plan in all of its terms.
But above everything else, we have lately had to withstand the impositions of the Minister of Development. With the intention of “optimising” the system, and failing completely to take a grasp of the basic evidence that there’s a shortage of air traffic controllers, he has imposed an increase in working hours together with a reduction in the resting periods.. He has also handed operational management to irresponsible and incompetent engineers who are incapable of changing configurations, or regulating traffic sector capacities at the right time, or giving priority to the necessary flights. On top of this, no consideration at all to human factors. Consequently, we have had overloads, delays and, worst of all, far many more near misses than before.
The ATCOs employer, Aena, enjoying the company of it’s ‘new’ bully cousin, has exerted all kinds of abuse, amongst them, disposing of workers’ days off with no previous advice. What we called the “express shifts”.
Endured we have the draconian impositions, which probably haven’t been equalled in any other civilised country in the world. But it hasn’t been without consequences. Depression and resort to tranquillisers or sleeping pills has been the norm. And the medical leaves, hundreds of them. Some for heart attacks or angina pectoris or even controllers having been stretchered out of their workplace, consciousless. Fortunately, there have been no suicides committed, as did happen in France Télécom, who had used the same consultancy company, McKinsey, as the Spanish Government.
To solve the medical leave problem (absenteeism, they called it), instead of reducing the exerted pressure, the State machinery decided to impose fines of up to 4.500.000 € for faking illness. No typing error. As you might have guessed, the workplace doctor is who’s in charge of deciding whether you’re fit or you’re pretending to be ill. He/she is paid by the same employer, Aena. The doctor has his own pressure in order to keep people at work. And you can’t even get a straightforward report immediately, you need to go through a lengthy process that involves complaining to the Head of the operations room and collecting the final report, many hours later, from the Human Resources department
Sometimes the medical service commits the atrocity of sending controllers with extremely high blood pressure back to their sectors. This isn’t the place to dispute the professionalism of doctors, but it’s a basic fact that they are unable to determine whether one is able to work; they have never seen a cotroller at work (I asked them). Their job depending on it, they would rather exert pressure upon us than the Company. Why don’t they share the responsibility if serious illness or even an airprox results from their decisions? They state that they are not under pressure to give us the thumbs up to go home, but they also express the fact that the report needs “objective parameters” and it is also complicated and five pages long!
Controllers in Spain have been struggling to cope with the pressure for over a year now. Under these circumstances, the only way to try to guarantee safety to both traffic and ourselves is to shield ourselves behind procedures and increase traffic separation, thereby hugely reducing efficiency in favour of safety.
In this environment I casually encounter an envelope in my letterbox. It contains a Eurocontrol project, called AIRE (air, in Spanish). It proposes lots of analyses of aircraft trajectories under “continuous descent”. The same idea of “free flight” created decades ago. The project’s aim is fantastic: considering that aviation contaminates, both atmospheric and acoustically, let’s enforce measures through which all pollution is reduced. Thereafter, hordes of Eurocontrol bureaucrats and technocrats involve dozens of civil servants who devote loads of hours filling in stacks of paperwork, so as to lead to multiple conferences that will show air traffic controllers the best way to do what we already did, very much more profficiently, a couple of years ago.
Controllers are well aware of what needs to be done in order to save fuel, time, noise and money. In fact, it wouldn’t be hard to prove that what has now been saved in controllers’ wages has been squandered many times over in broken shedules, crew hotels, controllers’ medical treatments, illness and leave paid for by the Social Security system and compensation to airlines for excessive fuel waste. Almost all these costs, as opposed to controllers’ pay, come from the taxpayer’s pocket. Probably, billions of euro. There is one person at the end of the responsibility chain for all this: the Development Minister José Blanco López.
And that is where I wonder: what has Mr Blanco, apart from destroying the efficiency of the Spanish Air Traffic Control System and and using the whole issue as a smoke curtain to hide all sorts of antisocial measures, achieved with all this? Ah, yes, he managed to increase the vote expectancy of the Socialist Party for a few moments.
Returning to my ecology argument, how are controllers going to be motivated and retrained now in order to get back to what we previously did quite well? When are we going to be left alone to work efficiently once again? When are these useless politicians going to admit that all this nonsense of flight fee control was absurd and inconsistent demagoguery (as well as admitting that if Airport fees are considered, they really have not been reduced at all). Honestly, will anyone change their business or holiday destination for the fifference of 20 or 30 cents in the price of their ticket?
These excesses of shortsighted and incompetent politicians have probably had the worst ever effect on one of the Spain’s most effective and reliable means of income: Tourism. I’m afraid we will all be paying the price for years to come.
Why didn’t they just state the end to be achieved and leave the pros (pilots and sontrollers) to do it?
If, on the other hand, their real intention was just to destroy the system, to make it less valuable in order to facilitate the sale to private groups, thereby diluting colossal investment errors or budget noncompliances, or just to show a pleasant face to the equally incompetent european bureaucrats, then forget all I’ve said, because from that viewpoint the job has been excellent. I just don’t understand it.
Nevertheless, I feel that citizens have the right to know that they have had their pockeys emptied for the squandering in absurd infrastructures, in budget excesses, and they’re still bearing the burden. And flights are delayed and probably not as safe. In exchange, they can feel happy because the average family is going to make a huge saving on next Summer’s holidays to Spain : exactly one euro!.

Feeling ill and the doctor's responsibility

Everyone has a bad day from time to time. I wasn’t feeling very well when I went to work today, afternoon shift. I went nevertheless, but was a bit blocked and stuffy. I usually have about one or two days like this per year, and frequently it’s on my day off.
Normally I would have an aspirin (in fact I did before leaving home) and just work through it. But during this last year I’ve seen too many incidents to be working without being 100% fit. And you must consider that in my current situation I’m not even the last person responsible for my sector, because I’me undergoing instruction in order to recover my validation after a long leave.
So, I decided to go to the workplace doctor. She’s upstairs from the operations room, less than a minute. I explained that I wasn’t feeling tiptop and she answered that she needed objective parameters. Temperature wasn’t too high, 37,2; and a visible sore throat wasn’t enough. So I had a chat and I tried to convey that the only real way to guarantee maximum safety is to make sure people who are not feeling fit on the day don’t get to work at their sector. It’s a very complicated issue, and once again the debate is upon the limits. The doctor admitted to not being able to know objectively if I had a headache or not. I didn’t, and I really just thought I should be relieved based upon not feeling very well, nothing else.
It turns out that the doctor doesn’t know what an airprox is. (You’ll excuse me for not knowing English jargon for that: literal translations from Spanish are crushing, sanding, or shoving). She has never been in the operations room. She doesn’t have a clue what our job is about. I assumed the doctors are pressurised upon to give as few leaves as possible. She denied it. Finally I stated my opinion that not everything could or should be objective: if a controller isn’t feeling fit, he/she should refrain. There are rules and fines for faking illness, but what about a headache, your dog died last night, or you exceeded yourself in the jogging and you’re sugar’s running low?. These can’t be judged objectively by simple visual examination by a doctor. But they are limiting conditions. So how should it work, because, on the other hand, I admit we can’t have workers pulling out ill whenever they want a day off (although this is a lesser evil).
In the end, the only way to organise this is to base the employer/employee relationship on confidence and good will. And throw in a couple more controllers than are needed in the shift, just in case.
By the way, I finally had high blood pressure, so I did leave for home. The doctor had to fill in five sheets of paperwork (isn’t that pressure against the leave?) and if I want my report –which I will- I have to go through a rigmarole involving the operations room Head and the Human Resources department. And I’ll get my report in a couple of days!
If you’re a controller from abroad, let me know how you do it. In comments below or to simon.a.rance@gmail.com. Thanks

English: a controversial topic

You would be excused for thinking this is as straightforward as it can get. You enter a selection process. You prove your level of English. You get selected. You study and do your training and then you have a job with great wages and you forget about your English altogether because you’re never going to be tested again.
That was so until a few years ago. Or a few months, from our point of view. ICAO (International Civil Aviation Authority) has proved that miscommunication is a key factor in many air traffic incidents and therefore has published a document (doc 9835) and a circular (318) to do it’s best to establish minimum standards for all Air Traffic Controllers and Pilots, in order to curb this serious problem. It poses the need for all personnel to pass an exam and obtain level 4 or higher out of six. It also established a deadline which nobody took any notice of. So it has now been extended, for the last time, until 5th March 2011.
This means nothing to you native English speakers out there but it causes havoc here in Spain. We currently have ATCO’s with 30 plus years’ experience who haven’t done an English refresher in the whole of their working life. Some others have. Some practise a lot, regardless of their job. About two thousand different cases. All are now required to prove their proficiency during the next month. And beware: you lose your license if you fail!
How much English is really used on the average day at work? Not much more than numbers and descriptors to indicate runway names, speeds, headings, altitudes, rates of climb or descent, departure or landing procedure names, and company or unit names. Possibly a little more may be needed to warn of bad weather or radio interference. It seldom goes any further than that.
These are the grounds for many controllers to argue that, if they have been working for a number of years and have never been involved in an incident report regarding the use of English, why shouldn’t they be validated to continue working? Precisely the opposite reasoning goes into ICAO’s effort: many people hadn’t suffered a mishap because non-routine circumstances hadn’t cropped up. The whole English debate intends to ensure that we all are ready to affront most non-routine situations
These are also the reasons that were used by National Safety Agencies to curb the previous deadline by giving all workers a provisional level 4. That’s now until March 5th next. By then, you have to hold your certificate. All you have to do is get yourself a four, then forget the whole issue for three years. Or a five and forget it for six years. A level six will allow you to bury the bastard for ever, although you have to be practically bilingual to get one. For 2000 controllers, anything could happen. But, despite claims from the Spanish ATCO Guild that our English is excellent, it doesn’t seem that absolutely everyone will keep their license. And many are scared stiff to take the exam.
All this has caught both Aena and Spanish controllers off guard. More than a year ago some of us were offered a test exam over the phone. Just a few of us actually tried it. As far as I know, nobody got any marks. Nobody knew what it was all about. Nothing else was known for months, until suddenly we received a letter from the Human Resources Director pointing out the new deadline, and it’s consequences.
So what will Aena do to the controllers who fail their test? Basically, a six months leave with progressively diminishing pay has been offered, in order to give people time to revive their languishing English and retry the test. All studying has to be done in one’s own time, although Aena has offered an online study package. If, after this you fail, you’re fired.
Bear in mind the following situation: Controller has been at the job for 35 years, had qualified for early retirement, was deprived of that by the (probably illegal and certainly immoral) Royal Decree, but could still retire in the short future, maintaining substantial wages until full retirement and State pension. He/she fails the exam a few weeks before retirement and loses it all, without ever having been offered an English refresher. Obviously unacceptable. Our reaction has been to leave the exam until the last possible moment, just in case Aena realises that it has some duty towards it’s workers.
Even the Sinister Minister has had to speak. Facing the prospect of suddenly losing all Air Traffic Services in Spain, he has filtered a project extending the validity of our English level 4 for 18 months. As a result, we will be an ICAO exception (as in many other areas). And if all our managers and politicians continue to try to enforce unacceptable measures upon us with no negotiation we are slowly but steadily going to turn into one of the most dangerous places to fly to in the world. If we’re not there already.

Fatigue and the million dollar question.

In earlier posts I showed how we are now forced to do 40% more than other countries’ controllers, and I suppose nobody can embrace the idea of knackered controllers. After quite a while experiencing how Aena has tried to squeeze the last drop of blood out of us, after seeing how dozens of colleagues have fallen to illness (including myself), and many others work under the effect of tranquillisers or need pills to sleep at night, one wonders: Where is the limit? Surely there must be a point where it’s unfair to ask an air traffic control specialist to do any more. I feel that most readers will think that they already spend too much time and effort at their own workplace, and I cannot dispute that, but the specific responsibility of an ATCO may require specific working condition guarantees.
Each of us obviously has different capacities. Some of us can withstand less pressure than others. Politically incorrect as it may be, I need to expose what really is an obvious truth: although all controllers have passed their respective tests and have the required skills to do the job, some are better than others. Sometimes very much so. The same applies to resilience, some are tougher than others.
Our’s is a very specialised job. I don’t believe that it’s in any way more important than others in this or other fields. We’re just the end of a large chain. We could do nothing if engineeers, maintenance or cleaning weren’t running properly. Each link of the chain is as important as each other.
On the other hand, it is true that our task is delicate. We "play" directly with thousands of lives every day and therefore have to be serene, rested and show a reasonably positive attitude. We are even compelled by law to refrain from work if we’re not feeling up to it on the given day. An article of the Air Safety Law specifically addresses this (art 34.4 LSA).
The Goverment used a rationale to justify increasing our hours to 1670 (plus 80 of overtime). They said that is what we effectively did a couple of years ago, when so much overtime had been done. That would respond to a certain logic if the conditions had also been maintained. But there are many major changes. Rest within the shift has been reduced from 33 to 25%. Rostering is done only ten days in advance, instead of 90. The over 57’s were unjustifiably axed. So much so, that they were recovered six months later. Pay was reduced between 25 and over 75%, depending on the previous overtime. These and many more were measures that just added to the already extreme pressure upon ATCOs’ shoulders. Admitting a degree of subjectivity, where’s the reasonable limit? It’s very hard to establish an objective yearly limit, but I can focus on daily ones.
My own experience and subjective feeling makes me think that, under a high traffic load, the maximum continuous working limit is about an hour, probably a bit more if you mix tasks (i.e. planning/organising as well as actually controlling).
The Spanish Government has helped me to establish an objective limit, because it has published a Royal Decree on “limits to activity and rests” (RD 1001/2010 5th Aug.) last August. Instead of performing its own studies about fatigue on the workplace it decides to use comparable international legislation, and it chooses FAA (USA) and NATS (UK), as an example, because they are the amongst the most demanding and flexible, in order to allow the ANSPs to satisfy the necessary demand. Obviously, for the rest of my working career I would have preferred less demanding hours, but this has been imposed by Royal Decree, no negotiation. The law imposes a maximum limit of two consecutive hours, literally copied from SRATCOH, the UK regulation. Not only do I personally think that is too much, I’ve also observed that the Spanish ruling has “forgotten” to translate parts relating to enhanced relief, which establishes increased rest, with a maximum of 1h30min continuous activity, for high complexity workplaces, as many in Aena are. Our irresponsible legislators have also added a clause allowing Aena to delay implementation 18 months. In the meantime, we are working daily timetables of no less than three consecutive hours almost every day.
If the Spanish law states that its conditions are those necessary in order to guarantee a fatigue free environment, is it reasonable to assume that if it is not abided by, that guarantee vanishes?
To be honest with you all, I must say that I know nothing about other countries’ regulations on this topic, but I wonder why they have chosen UK and USA. Could it be because those two countries naturally have a lower fatigue load than Spain because they only use one language? Spanish is an official ICAO language and has to be used together with English every day on the radio, meaning constant register changes, and therefore a higher workload.
More about English in a future post. Thanks for reading.

Why and how so much overtime?

In my last post I published Eurocontrols numbers for yearly working hours at different Air Navigation Service Providers. Spanish ATCOs were required to work about 40% more hours than other providers. I believe that this was one of the first steps taken in order to destroy our profession and bust our Union.
Just to prove the point let me tell you how rostering works (at least in Spain). You are not allowed to adjoin two shifts operating with real air traffic, but you may do a simulator session, as a trainee or an instructor, just before or after a real traffic shift. Thus it was perfectly possible to do a morning shift, afternoon simulator, night shift, morning simulator and afternoon shift in direct succession. This is obviously unreasonable and no-one really wanted to do it. That's why overtime hours' pay rose to a very high amount.
What almost nobody knows is that Aena imposed a double condition in order to earn that overtime: you could only work in the simulator if you had previously worked in the operations room, and you could only do overtime in the operations room if you has previously worked in the simulator. This is so extreme that there is no written evidence to prove it but I personally assure you it's true. I got to hear it when I was learning and practising the new airspace for the Madrid TMA (Terminal Manoeuvring Area). Aena was very intent on it getting through quickly. We then thought we were doing everyone: Aena, Government, Citizens, a huge favour. Now I believe that we were innocent victims of the first step of a huge image campaign which has ended in the demonisation of a group of workers to achieve a goal.
What's the goal, I hear you ask! My guess might be slightly better than yours, but I feel it's just trying to offer the best possible situation for a private buyer to invest heavily in the company and it's airports. In fact, privatisation is on it's way. The ruling (a decree again) that puts 13 airports on the marketplace, was published in December.
Hurry! they're cheap now, and Spain may have a reasonable future in the mid term run.Right now a few airports that have been completed in the last couple of years (case of Castellón and Ciudad Real) are bankrupt.
Mismanagement?
More about Ciudad Real and/or what happened on the 3rd December in my next post. Thanks for reading!