Somehow, despite being a bunch of semi-autistic computer-oriented males, the subject of working in air traffic control has never come up. If I'm wrong please let me know so I can take this down*.
Back on the Career Crossroads thread (now cannot find), someone mentioned that NATS were on a recruitment drive for air traffic controllers. Being very much a nerd at a career crossroads at the time, I decided to give it a go. The 'infographic' on the NATS site suggests there's fairly slim odds of qualifying as a trainee unless you are Rain Man himself.
Fast forward six months and I've now qualified as a trainee. I'm supposed to be embarking on a 21 week training course in either Spain or Gloucester on what amounts to less than minimum wage, with a bunch of 20 year olds (I'm 37 with a wife and three young kids).
Whilst this is all well and good I'm struggling to get any straight info out of NATS, specifically: Do any other older, heavily-indebted candidates manage to continue to do consulting work on the side whilst training, in order to afford the drop in salary? I did ask this on the final assessment day and got some very disapproving looks from the assessors. They implied the training required 100% commitment, but I'm wondering how true this is in 'real life'.
The 'Benefits' page on the NATS website is also a masterclass in ambiguity. You owe £350k to a bank but you want to know how much you'll earn and when? How crude of you to ask!
In short, if you've been through the training & validation at NATS recently I'd love to hear from you. Someone on here must have!
*Probably shouldn't write "take this down" and "air traffic" in the same thread. Still, maybe someone from Interpol can help answer the above.
