Spanish Air Traffic Controllers walk out. Military takes over.

Originally posted by weedwhacker
reply to post by bigyin

 

NO...they didn't "abandon" airplanes. Read the article.

(BTW....pilots are smart. We know how to self-manage, if necessary, without ATC. ATC effectively increases the flow of traffic, by co-ordinating it, from their viewpoint. Left to our own devices, pilots can just talk to each other, same radios used to communicate with ATC! It happens now and then, and is no big deal. Especially nowadays, every airliner is equipped with TCAS.....)

People seem to always misunderstand the nature of such job actions...they here "walkout" and visualize it literally...

They called in sick. From home. They did NOT report for work. When police officers do this, they dub it the "blue flu".

These sorts of work stoppages are well-advertised ahead of time. As you see in the articles, the Spanish airspace, and airports, were systematically shut down ahead of time.....

edit on 3 December 2010 by weedwhacker because: (no reason given)

I did read the article, some quotes:

"The captain came out to say Spanish airspace had suddenly shut, with no prior warning," another passenger stuck in a plane at Palma told Spanish radio.

several airports across Spain were shut after traffic controllers' unauthorised walkout

The controllers' action began at 1700 local time (1600 GMT), resulting in the shutdown of about 90% of Spain's airspace, with the exception of the southern region of Andalucia

reply to post by Sly1one


Come on this is the sick point.

Check Pprune.org and the thread about Spanish ATC. you will see that these guys are the highest paid controllers in Europe.

and in the UK at least a controller gets $60000 PA so if the Spaniards get more then pay the mortgage!!??? not a problem

It's just symptomatic of a nationalized industry that is killing the aviation sector worldwide at the moment.

Originally posted by MGriff
edition.cnn.com...

It's everywhere. This is a major problem with the government benefits and services many western citizens are used to having. Once it becomes unsustainable, people are furious that they are no longer provided the same services before.

edit on 3-12-2010 by MGriff because: (no reason given)

They're whining because the government of King Juan Carlos, like the governments in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and the UK have reached a point where they can't be solely responsible for wiping the butts and noses of their child-like socialist populations.


Riots in France over raising the retirement age 2 years...Riots in Greece because the government wouldn't print money to maintain a completely unsustainable and lazy standard of living for the Greeks. UK students rioting over tuition hikes.What do all of these things have in common? They're all run by the same communist or nationalist organizations that have been in Europe since time immemorial.

Screw the EU. I've never seen such a coddled bunch of whiny people in my whole life. I don't want to be rude to our Euro members here on ATS...I know I'm being harsh and I know you guys are going through a tough time, this isn't anything personal, I'm tired of the EU, an d the individual EU states promising the world to their people for 50 years knowing full well it wouldn't last forever...So now that they're taking the spoon-fed prosperity away, and they've run out of other people's money to maintain their utopia, it's time for the kids to riot.

And the left and right in the US want us to be more like the EU? Sorry, we became Americans in 1776 so that we wouldn't be anything like them.