Back in August 2009, this blog discussed a new contract for U.S. air traffic controllers, bumping their pay up from a median of $117,000 per year (post). When you read this piece from the Times of London about Spanish air traffic controller pay, it becomes clear why the U.S. union felt that their members are underpaid. For reference, Spain has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, with 43 percent of young people who are looking for jobs unable to find one (nytimes). Mancur Olson would have predicted that, in a mature country such as Spain, for every young person struggling to get on that first rung of the work ladder there would be a highly paid older worker stepping on the kid’s hands. The Times seems to have found some of those older workers. The unionized controllers in Spain have an “average basic salary” of nearly $300,000 per year, “but most double or triple this amount by working overtime.” The ten highest paid controllers are earning around $1.2 million per year, handling flights carrying Spanish citizens who earn an average of $25,500 per year.
[How busy are the Spanish controllers? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World’s_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic shows that the Madrid airport is one of the world’s 30 busiest, handling about half as many passengers as Atlanta and 50 percent more than Minneapolis or Charlotte. Spain has 2,300 controllers, according to the Times article, one for every 17,400 residents. The U.S. has 26,000 according to the BLS, one for every 11,540 residents. So in theory the Spanish controllers are working harder, serving more people. I could not find any statistics for the total number of flights by country, but I suspect that the U.S. has many more flights per capita. The U.S. has larger distances to cover and fewer good alternatives for ground transportation. The U.S. has a vibrant general aviation sector, including thousands of training aircraft that do practice instrument approaches and landings all day every day. The U.S. needs air freight to deliver mail and packages overnight; Spain is smaller than Texas. The general aviation component is what makes U.S. controllers so busy. Spain has 153 airports (source); the U.S. has more than 15,000. I did find this report from the Spanish airport authority. The Barcelona airport, for example, which is Spain’s 2nd busiest, handled an average of 1000 operations per day in 2007. Teterboro, NJ, with no commercial flights, handles 500 per day, even after the Collapse of 2008. The Palo Alto, CA airport, with a 2400′ runway (suitable for 4-seat Cessnas and Pipers; a jet airport would typically have 7,000′ or more), also handles 500 operations per day. Reed-Hillview, a training airport east of the main San Jose, CA airport, handles 630 operations per day. In fact, it looks as though there are more takeoffs and landings in the San Francisco Bay Area than in all of Spain.]
There was a huge outrage in Spain about this not long ago. They are planning reduce salaries heavily, but probably the unions will boycott the plan. Business as usual.
Us old-timers laughed when US controllers said they wanted pay equity with airline pilots. Well, they have it since US controllers also bump their pay toward $200,000 with overtime. There is also a suspicious medical element that certifies many controllers as disabled and eligible for early disability retirement due to stress.
Its sorta like getting an Air Medal for piloting a Predator from Nevada and going home to the wife and pool at night.
Some Spanish airports with control towers handle about 300 operations per month. http://www.aena.es/csee/Satellite?MO=0&SMO=-1&SiteName=ODB&c=Page&cid=1046972065602&pagename=subHome&Language=ES_ES
A good friend of mine who is a captain for a major Spanish airline and flies to NYC and Miami thinks the Spanish controllers are way less competent than their American counterparts. I’m sure at those pay rates many US controllers will love to work in Spain.
Government jobs are ideal targets for unions. According to today’s NYT government employees make up the majority of America’s unionized labor.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/business/23labor.html?scp=1&sq=union&st=cse
Hi Philip,
I read the same kind of article on a well-known french newspaper. One of my colleagues didn’t believe me when I told him the salaries for controllers in Spain. I had to scan the article and sent it to him. He was very surprised and said : ”I should have been a controller…”.
Keep in touch (being in my IFR books…) – good to review some stuffs !
Eric
Hi all,
I’m a spanish ATC that doesn’t work in Spain. I do work somewhere else in Europe and try and follow what happens back home as best as I can.
First, you should put all this information in perspective. AENA, the spanish ANSP, is sort of two companies under one unbrella. That is AE (aeropuertos españoles=spanish airports) and NA (air navigation). AE carries about 11000 million € of debt. NA earns 300 million € a year NET. The government is trying to privatize (not fully, though) in order to rationalize and stop the bleeding of money. How to interest people? Polish things a bit. They intend to reduce the controllers salaries so that NA looks even better and then they’ll try to sale some of AE together with it.
By the way, those 300k slaries aren’t such, they’re not even before tax, but how much it costs the company, as an average, to run the workforce. I’d bet the farm they even include the costs of the human resources department divided by the number of controllers. Another thing that is not mentioned anywhere is the tax bracket of 43% that goes towards unemployment, medical, and infrastructure of the whole country (yes, those unemployed youngsters get a salary, medical care, and enjoy really nice infrastructures like parcs and sport facilities paid by whoever is working).
So again: how about finding solutions for the unemployed instead of screwing with the employed? ATC’s in Spain earn their money from air tax, not from government pay. So you only pay them if you choose to fly through Spain.
I’ve even heard in other forums that, with the (wrong) amount of money they get paid, you could hire 15 people or more on a minimum wage…like that’s gonna happen!!Again the company will keep the benefit.
Sorry to bash like this but I’m tired of reading the same everywhere when it is not true. I know second hand since I do not work there, but have friends who do, and now see some professionals not even being able to speak openly about what they do for fear of the public opinion. A p.o. that has been misled into linching poeple that should be an icon of what to achieve in life through honest work by some politicians with a dubious agenda.
A.
Hi,
I agree with Adrian. I am ATC and I used to work in South America. I left my country mainly for the salary (or should I say the lack of salary?) but also for the unsafe conditions of the aviation in that places. Now I’m getting a decent salary for a very stressful job that could send me to jail. We really do a difficult job. So, I celebrate that at least one country in the world is paying good salaries to atc’s. I would like to know if spanish politicians are planning to reduce drastically their salaries and expenses to contribute to reduce the unemployment rates (honestly, I think this has nothing to do with it).
Hello All,
First wow.
Second, I enroll in a 10-month course in April to certify myself as an air traffic controller. (the 10 month course eventually gets the students their CTO) I know the pay for controllers in the States is, on average very high, but when I heard about the salary in Spain, I was floored. I’m even considering an international move to benefit from the enormous pay difference when I’m fully certified. Is it really true that atcs in Spain make between 300-600,000 salaries? That number just seems so high, that like most things sounding this good, it can’t be possible. Thanks for any comments.
-Jacob Taylor
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704140104575057010791293480.html?mod=googlenews_wsj confirms that the average salary was about $500,000 per year (the Wall Street Journal has pretty good fact-checkers, unlike the typical newspaper), but there is now talk of reducing it (politicians talk a lot more than they do, so probably best to check back in a couple of years to see how the dust settles). If you’re an American, however, it seems very unlikely that you would be able to get a work permit in Spain. The Europeans have plenty of unemployed citizens; they don’t need immigrants from the U.S. coming over and undercutting their wages.
Congratulations on choosing a career in government, by the way!