I noticed an article in the Daily Mail today about what Spanish air traffic controllers earn (here). I thought that must be typical exaggeration by the popular press, but decided to see if I find out what they “really” earn. It turns out that the figures are probably accurate – here’s an article in El Mundo quoting similar figures (translation here):
There are 2300 Spanish air traffic controllers. 28 of them earn more than 700,000 Euro per year, 135 earn more than 600,000 Euro and 713 have wages that range between 360,000 and 540,000 Euro. A few make more than 900,000 Euro. According to AENA, the average is 350,000 Euro per year, almost triple the amount that a British controller and twice that of a Frenchman, German or Italian.
I thought working in IT (information technology) was pretty reasonably paid, but there are very few employees in IT earning over 350,000 Euro a year. I would say there are not many salaried IT employees in Germany earning a third of that.
(By the way I am using the European separators for thousand (“,”). It is always a problem knowing which to use, the comma comes automatically to me after 30 years in Germany, and it is also what you see in Google’s automated translation above).
