Social actions at air navigation service provider skeyes (Belgium) - possible air traffic disruptions

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mvg
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Re: Air traffic control service skeyes to strike in the evenings and nights of 12 & 13 March

Post by mvg »

We probably can't agree on all the points discussed but thanks already for sharing your arguments.

From my point of view Atco's simply have brilliant conditions, not only looking at the salary.
Above earning more than 6000€ (after tax) per month, they have:

- a totally secure job, as they are State employees. In other words, they can never be fired. If they lose their medical they are guaranteed another job at the same salary (except the premies): ask pilots how much money such a guarantee is worth (and how much they pay for their "loss of income" insurance). As State employees, even if their company goes bankrupt, controllers will get another job, with the same salary scale! That's very different in other countries. And talk to ex-Sabena, ex-Virgin or ex-City Bird pilots...

And it's not only about the medical: have you heard about that Atco from UK who was fired because he...answered a phone he wasn't allowed to answer? Similar things happened in our country and guess what happened? Nothing :) No worries! But in any other country if you do anything else than your job on position, you are fired! Any pilot missing something very important because he would be doing something else not connected to his work at all would be fired!

- an easy job compared to the Atcos working in countries with higher salaries. Heathrow director, London ACC, and many others are not to be compared... Let's not even talk about their workload. Those guys can work up to 2 hours and a half on position and get 30 minutes break (usually less than 2.30 but if short of staff they just do it, without striking). As stated by a controller himself in this thread, here they get 2 to 3 hours break here per shift! Shifts last 6 hours (last hour is never worked) so basically we are comparing controllers who work 3 hours per day with others who work 5.30 to 6 hours!
Additionnally, many positions are single manned in neighboring countries. All radar positions in Canac are 2 persons sectors. Nothing wrong with that but then it costs the company twice the price (two atcos per position instead of one).

- about pension: at 57 (slightly variable according to how many years they have worked), a controller goes "in dispo", which means that he gets 80% of his salary until his pension and he can stay at home (yes, at home). Afterwards, pension is above 3500€ (after tax). Again not even comparable to other countries!

So yes, let's compare with others but everything! And let's compare with all the people who had to cancel their plans each time there was a strike!

Controllers live in another world and forget that a huge part of the working population has way much harder working conditions, much more stress, and salaries that are much lower. I don't call stress working one hour peak per day behind a radar compared to working in a private company where your boss if after you checking everything you do every single minute. In Belgium there is basically no check of what you do. You can leave your workplace early: nobody says anything. You can work with 3, 5, 10 miles between planes, as long as you are above the minimum, there is no maximum! One can land 15 planes per hour and won't be blamed while he could have landed 35: nobody says anything! You can fail your annual check: no worries, here are 10 (or more) other attemps, for free! And nobody fails, because there is no real check (questions are given in advance and someone signs a paper without even watching the work).

Let's take everything into account please and inform the public of what things are. Because you screw up the public. If you want to keep your conditions secret, fine, but then leave people alone and let them fly as they have or want to. You are a public service! We pay for your jobs!
It's true that not everything is done well in the company, that a lot of things could be improved. But that is not a reason, when you have so many privileges, to screw up people who can barely afford to go once per year on holidays. And at least tell them everything which is going on. And then everyone can make her/his own idea.

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sn26567
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Re: Air traffic control service skeyes to strike in the evenings and nights of 12 & 13 March

Post by sn26567 »

It seems that we have a staffing problem again! (Picture from Eurocontrol website communicated privately to Aviation24.be. Remember: times are UTC)

Image
André
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Atco EBBR
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Re: Air traffic control service skeyes to strike in the evenings and nights of 12 & 13 March

Post by Atco EBBR »

The other problem is that Canac's personnel is foreseen for sectors that never open. How often are all the sectors opened at ACC? NEVER. Why no accept to reduce reasonably the amount of Atcos present per shift? How many controllers are present per shift?
Staffing is foreseen for 2 sectors open, not all of them. If need be, extra sectors can be opened, but only for a limited period. During the winter, west is only occasionally on 2 sectors, east about half of the time. I think there would be support from ATCO's to reduce the number of controllers per shift in winter time, on condition that you protect the controllers by imposing restrictions that guarantee that a 2nd sector can only be opened for a limited timeframe.
At night at Brussels approach and tower: why is approach open at night while there are almost no flights into BRU? That's 3 controllers per night (6 per day) present for nothing! That almost solves your missing people now!
There are quite some arrivals to EBBR between 22LT and 24LT. Definitely too much to handle without approach. Btw you need controllers with valid multiple RWY APS ratings to work Brussels approach. The only ones who have that are the people from approach... And reducing manning at approach during the night would not solve staff shortage at the ACC of course...
Because controllers don't want to make any concessions!
We are definitely prepared to make concessions, but it needs to be part of a fair deal. Many people nowadays don't feel fairly treated at all: overrostering, non-adherence to internal rules (controllers from the regional towers being sent to ACS/APS course ahead of dozens of controllers from EBBR with a lot more seniority, ea), non-adherence to legal rights (maternal/paternal leave requests go unanswered, are modified without agreement,...) Now there's even talk of sending the next batch of ab-initios directly to ACS/APS course, so jumping ahead of scores of colleagues at the towers, whilst not solving anything at all. The bottleneck is not in the simulator training, but in the on-the-job training in canac which will barely be sufficient to replace the retirees. As you rightly said, the towers are now fully staffed, so controllers can be sent from there to the ACS/APS course, whilst the ab-initios replace them...

There was a nice opportunity just before the recruitment wave was started: if the ab-initios had been told then: 'you'll be trained for tower only', the split-career could have been reality now. Ask every tower controller if they want to try for ACS/APS, give them to opportunity to do so, whilst replenishing the towers with new dedicated tower controllers. It should have been in place a long time already, because it is indeed a waste of time and resources to have to train each controller twice before they can go to canac. BUT, a fair plan needs to be in place first, because for instance ATS expert positions now are only available to canac controllers, so leaving no further career opportunities for dedicated tower controllers.
mvg wrote: ↑
Today, 08:07
About training too many controllers at a time in Canac: you are right, there are limits. But 6 per shift isn't unrealistic in the current desperate situtation: 1 for approach, 1 for east, 1 for west, each of them one hour on one hour off (which is what happens) and that's it! Do that each morning and each afternoon and you train 12 people per day with never more than one per "unit section". Where is the problem?
I'm not an expert at staffing and work routines at CANAC, but the main issue with your plan is the problem that only trainees would be working at almost all times, making it impossible for licensed controllers to work and retain their skills. Especially for newly licensed controllers it would mean that immediately after finishing their training, they wouldn't be able anymore to work any real traffic, leading to a decrease in skills. That's a problem we see now in the towers. Notably in Antwerp, there are controllers who have been licensed for about two years (and will therefore become instructors soon) and who have basically only work the ground position in Antwerp (which requires basically no skills, considering they have only 2 proper taxiways). Soon they will be expected to train people, but they never had a chance to get any proper experience; which is clearly a safety issue.
Furthermore, there are specific traffic flows at different times during the days and instructors choose which flows to work with their trainee, depending on at what point in the training they are. The point of on the job training is to require enough skills and if you can't work the required flows enough, you won't get the skills and fail, or need more time which just makes the bottleneck even tighter).
100% correct. Keep in mind that you need a certain amount of unit-hours to keep your license valid. So 6-8 per day/6 months (ACC+APP) seems more realistic. And unfortunately, not everyone succeeds the training...
One item on which I disagree are the salaries. Every controller in CANAC is above 5500/6000euros after tax (6000 for those with some seniority). Those who worked overtime were getting above 10000 every 3 months (250% paid). You forget to mention the 3 premies (end of the year + company + holidays) which gives at least 800 euros extra per month) so that is minimum 6300/6800 euros per months per controller without the 250% premies for the recalls and stuff.
I don't think are salaries are relevant in this discussion. We are not making any financial demands. And does having a high salary imply that you just have take everything else? That you forego your legal rights? That you don't mind working 7-12 days in a row? That you're happy your holiday requests are denied?

Btw, your numbers seem to be slightly overoptimistic. I have 4000€ net, with somewhere between 200€ and 1000€ (exceptionally good month) in premiums, usually +/- 500€. ACC/APP controllers have about 500€ more a month, I'm told. I don't know where on earth 10000€ in overtime premium comes from, but I think you'd quite literally need to work every single day in a trimester to get there... I took the trouble to look it up: I once had a trimester with 35 hours overtime (5 days). 3500€ bruto. So you'd need to do 6 times as many hours extra, so 30 days to get close. How are you going to do that if on average 10 possible overtime days a month?

So, now that our numbers are on the table, would you mind divulging your earnings? You seem to have no scrupules in talking about and inflating ours...

I see another post in the mean time has been published. I don't know if I'll take the effort to answer that one as well, this post was 3 days in the making...

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Re: Air traffic control service skeyes to strike in the evenings and nights of 12 & 13 March

Post by sn26567 »

Skeyes puts structural solutions on the negotiation table

https://www.aviation24.be/air-traffic-c ... ion-table/
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Re: Air traffic control service skeyes to strike in the evenings and nights of 12 & 13 March

Post by SR20 »

sn26567 wrote: 18 Mar 2019, 18:24 Skeyes puts structural solutions on the negotiation table

https://www.aviation24.be/air-traffic-c ... ion-table/
I'm afraid ATCO's won't be very pleased !

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Re: Air traffic control service skeyes to strike in the evenings and nights of 12 & 13 March

Post by sn26567 »

SR20 wrote: 18 Mar 2019, 19:27
sn26567 wrote: 18 Mar 2019, 18:24 Skeyes puts structural solutions on the negotiation table

https://www.aviation24.be/air-traffic-c ... ion-table/
I'm afraid ATCO's won't be very pleased !
It's probably like in every negotiation: you get some, you give some. The truth lies in between.
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mvg
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Re: Air traffic control service skeyes to strike in the evenings and nights of 12 & 13 March

Post by mvg »

Hi Atco EBBR.

Thanks for your input and your time. The discussion is getting a bit technical but interesting.

Let me answer item per item:

- Is is possible to reduce the staff?
Staffing is foreseen for two sectors open (per side (west and east)): how many controllers does that mean per shift?
Of course if staff is reduced, regulations need to be ready in case of staff shortage. Regulations, not closures.

- Brussels approach still open at night with 3 controllers:

Possible solution: Approach controllers work till 23.00LT, then the tower takes over the approach: tower controllers have an approach licence and (hopefully) are able to vector 15 planes per hour (reality is under 10) for one runway (no need to use two with so little traffic). From midnight there is no traffic anymore.
That's what tower controllers in EBOS, EBAW, EBLG and EBCI do all the time (with sometimes more traffic).
EBCI and EBAW are closed at night so they don't need BRU approach anymore.
Gaining 6 shifts per day for sure helps. Aren't many controllers about to retire at the approach? That's a bunch less to replace if you apply this.
6 full time less that would cost nothing to Skeyes! And less nights to work for approach people: that's a good deal!

- Quote "People don't feel fairly treated":
Overrostering: management considers a night as one day/one shift: in any company, a shift is a shift. The most important thing after a night is rest. And you get it as you are not rostered until the next day (minimum 23 hours of rest after a night). Why would they count it for two days to apply the rostering rules? The company pays for 14 hours, for 10 hours of presence at work (in reality 9) and for 3 or 4 hours really worked. Why would they count this for two day?
Seniority: the big thing! Mentalities need to change! Especially in difficult times like now! Forget about seniority! Let the company train ab-initoi straight to radar to fill in the units. That's the fastest and most econoical way. If you train them first for tower and then for radar, you pay two courses and lose a lot of time!
That seniority rule is really bad: the person with the highest seniority gets the highest job, all the time. Do you think it's good way to have the best people at the right place?
Seniority dates back from the years 1980. Times have changed! And ATC needs to change too, like airlines did. It's now a business. Look at NATS, AENA and DFS: they invest in other businesses, they still do an efficient work but they cut those kinds of useless costs. Like airline have been doing for the last 20 years!

- Salary: very relevant in the discussion because it's paid by everyone! You are a public service and as one of your colleague said: it is public (but nobody can find it :)
To avoid misunderstanding, 6300/6800€ after tax is for an ACC or APP controller and as explained in my post.
Any administrator can contact me to verify the amounts I wrote here, as long as the names on the salary slip are kept confidential.

Now let's see what comes up with the new proposals :D

Thanks for this discussion!

PS: my salary isn't really relevant but if you ask, it's exactly the same as a radar controller.

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Re: Air traffic control service skeyes to strike in the evenings and nights of 12 & 13 March

Post by SR20 »

Not pleased, as I said !
Capture+_2019-03-19-10-07-02.png

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Re: Social actions at air traffic control service skeyes (former Belgocontrol)

Post by luchtzak »

A0906/19
From:20 MAR 19 00:30 Till:20 MAR 19 02:45
Text:BRUSSELS ACC CLSD DUE TO STAFF SHORTAGE. EMERG FREQ ARE WATCHED

convair
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Re: Social actions at air traffic control service skeyes (Belgium) - possible air traffic disruptions

Post by convair »

This Belgocontrol is a national disgrace! Time to put an end to that farce.

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Re: Social actions at air traffic control service skeyes (former Belgocontrol)

Post by sn26567 »

luchtzak wrote: 19 Mar 2019, 20:05 A0906/19
From:20 MAR 19 00:30 Till:20 MAR 19 02:45
Text:BRUSSELS ACC CLSD DUE TO STAFF SHORTAGE. EMERG FREQ ARE WATCHED
Liege Airport (and the Belgian economy) will again be the main victims of this action (or lack thereof) :(
André
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SR20
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Re: Social actions at air traffic control service skeyes (former Belgocontrol)

Post by SR20 »

sn26567 wrote: 19 Mar 2019, 22:30
luchtzak wrote: 19 Mar 2019, 20:05 A0906/19
From:20 MAR 19 00:30 Till:20 MAR 19 02:45
Text:BRUSSELS ACC CLSD DUE TO STAFF SHORTAGE. EMERG FREQ ARE WATCHED
Liege Airport (and the Belgian economy) will again be the main victims of this action (or lack thereof) :(
If one looks closely, most of the planes are parked on the LGG apron during this time frame ! I don't think this is a coincidence !

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Re: Social actions at air traffic control service skeyes (former Belgocontrol)

Post by Desert Rat »

SR20 wrote: 19 Mar 2019, 23:15
sn26567 wrote: 19 Mar 2019, 22:30
luchtzak wrote: 19 Mar 2019, 20:05 A0906/19
From:20 MAR 19 00:30 Till:20 MAR 19 02:45
Text:BRUSSELS ACC CLSD DUE TO STAFF SHORTAGE. EMERG FREQ ARE WATCHED
Liege Airport (and the Belgian economy) will again be the main victims of this action (or lack thereof) :(
If one looks closely, most of the planes are parked on the LGG apron during this time frame ! I don't think this is a coincidence !
Of course it's not a coincidence!

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Re: Social actions at air traffic control service skeyes (Belgium) - possible air traffic disruptions

Post by luchtzak »

Aerodromes

EBBR (Brussels)
Arrivals regulated with reduced rate due to ATC Industrial Action.
High delays.


Airspace

EBBU (Brussels)
Brussels airspace regulated due to ATC Industrial action until 1300 UTC.
High delays.


NMOC Brussels

mvg
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Re: Social actions at air traffic control service skeyes (Belgium) - possible air traffic disruptions

Post by mvg »

737MAX wrote: 20 Mar 2019, 08:29
convair wrote: 19 Mar 2019, 21:56 This Belgocontrol is a national disgrace! Time to put an end to that farce.
What do you suggest, then?
A new management?
Fire them all?
Put the military instead?

:roll:

Be serious for a second. And read the previous long posts in this topic.
I suggest that those who are not happy go to apply elsewhere (change job or the same job in another country) and they will quickly realize that there is no other work with conditions even close to those which they have.
I talk about the full package: not only salary but job security, working hours, flexibility, annual checks, sick leaves, right to strike 🙄 and so on and so on

And let’s start something new with those who really want to work. Many people will apply if there aren’t enough left.

Just imagine the job advert:
- between 164 and 198 days of work per year
- 35 hours per week including stand-by shifts
- I won’t mention the salary and the rest again 🍾

And please, let those who want to work now work. Because many don’t agree with those actions. Of course when you vote by raising your hand in front of everyone, that makes you look like a fool to disagree...

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Re: Social actions at air traffic control service skeyes (Belgium) - possible air traffic disruptions

Post by SR20 »

Many already left for clearer skies 😋 (Maastricht, Geneva, Dubai, Australia, UK...) wich obviously doesn't help solving the problem.
On the other hand, who made the other way around ? A few french militaries and a handful of Latvians !

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Re: Social actions at air traffic control service skeyes (Belgium) - possible air traffic disruptions

Post by mvg »

Not that many... less than 10 over the last 5 years. Some even came back... And many who left had other reasons than the working conditions (moving to be closer to their wife/husband for example)

And why did only a few French militaries and a few Latvians made it the other way around?
Because the contracts offered to foreigners are way less interesting than those offered to Belgians! 3 years, fired if you lose your medical (and for basically any reason), no right to strike :D , no housing allowance, and so on.
Who would quit his/her job for that?

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Re: Social actions at air traffic control service skeyes (Belgium) - possible air traffic disruptions

Post by luchtzak »

Brussels Airport: due to industrial actions at skeyes traffic to and from Brussels Airport may be disrupted until Thursday 21 March - 7 am. We apologize for the inconvenience.

SR20
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Re: Social actions at air traffic control service skeyes (Belgium) - possible air traffic disruptions

Post by SR20 »

Aerodromes

EBBR (Brussels)
Arrivals regulated at reduced rate due to ATC industrial action
High delays

EBCI (Charleroi/Brussels South)
Arrivals/Departures not available from 05:00 until 08:00 due ATC industrial action

EBOS (Oostende)
Arrivals/Departures not available from 06:15 until 08:15 due ATC industrial action

Airspaces

EBBU (Brussels)
Several Sectors regulated until 1300 due to ATC industrial action/ATC Staffing
High delays

NMOC Brussels

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