Staff Shortage Hits Home

Well what can I say. It's been a while since my last post. We've also been running a six man roster with five people for god knows how long.

So far we have been handling it pretty well with only one closure due to the staff shortage and that was on a weekend. Some people might argue my location doesn't need the tower manned on a weekend anyway. In the end we had to close as the only FPC controller available had reached his ten working days in a row which is the maximum.

The overtime has been pretty good. As a journeyman I don't get my fair share of it, but I have managed to clock up nearly seven hours this pay period in ED. To make the roster work with only five people, we have removed one of the shifts and run one short, with the day shift doing overtime as required.

It seems to be the trend lately with tower closures becoming common occurrence. I can't see it getting any better anytime soon. There are controllers all over the country (including myself) waiting for a transfer. That whole process has come to a screaming halt. They have to "rob Peter to pay Paul" if they want to move anyone. Some might say poor management on ASA's behalf to let it get to this point.

ABC news reported that aircraft flying between Sydney and Brisbane flew without air traffic control earlier this month because staff in Brisbane called in sick.

It meant that flights were not monitored between Coffs Harbour and Byron Bay from 5:00pm (AEST) to 11:00pm (AEST) and pilots were forced to communicate with each other by radio to avoid accidents.

Entrepreneur Dick Smith (of all people) says low pay rates are forcing air traffic controllers out of jobs. I don't quite know about that, but all those in favour for a pay rise raise your hands.

"It's just unacceptable, we have a situation where the tower at Launceston has been basically closed down because of not enough staff and there have been safety incidents there," he said.

"Avalon airport, which has over a million passengers a year, doesn't have any air traffic control in the tower at all." Now there's a funny thought. Melbourne tower just had to advertise to fill eight positions! How the **** do they think they will man Avalon any time soon? When asked by a controller recently ASA chose not to comment on the Avalon situation.

Regarding the ABC report, Air Services Australia says the use of radio communication between planes when control towers are closed is an internationally accepted practice.

That may be true, however slightly irrelevant, and the fact still stands that if something isn't done to fix these problems soon we are all going to be a tired and angry bunch of mofo's like our controller buddies in the US.

Tiger Airlines And The Bankstown Rumours

The rumour mill has been hard at work lately, with the possibility of Tiger Airlines operating out of Bankstown airport sparking some interest in the media.

Tiger Airways have recently placed an order for two Airbus A319s. A shorter version of the A320 used by airlines such as Jetstar.

Bankstown Airport has confirmed it is "possible" that some low-cost domestic airline services could start operating from its site towards the end of next year.

It really depends on your interpretation of "possible" as to how far you might want to look into it. Bankstown airport, which is located in Sydney's west, has been been the centre of such topics for some time. From an Air Traffic Control point of view, it's not just a simple "cut and run" to the nearest "other" aerodrome. There would have to be dramatic changes to current procedures and many other things to consider such as on airport fire fighting capabilities. And let's not forget the residents of the nearby area. Noise abatement is a huge issue in today's aviation industry.

Airport spokeswoman Meredith Laverty says "Just because Tiger have placed this order for A319s it does not mean they're flying in and out of Bankstown"

"The airport is not capable of handling that aircraft at the moment" she said

"We need to undertake a program of lengthening and strengthening our runways and taxiways and, importantly, a program of government approvals and community consultation."

It is confirmed that the airport currently has no agreements with any carriers (including Tiger Airways).

FAA Has Yet Another Near Miss: Trainee To Blame

Yet another near miss from the FAA. The ABC News reports below.

"Two airplanes carrying more than 120 passengers narrowly averted a collision after an air traffic control trainee told a Delta Air Lines pilot to turn into the path of an oncoming plane, officials said.

One pilot flew up and the other went down, and the planes never came closer than about 400 feet in altitude and 3 miles in lateral, or horizontal, separation, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said Thursday.

Standard separation is 1,000 feet vertical and 5 miles lateral, Cory said.

A cockpit collision avoidance system alerted the pilots to the danger, in the skies east of Pittsburgh.

Delta Flight 1654 was en route from Cincinnati to LaGuardia Airport in New York Tuesday morning and was carrying 57 passengers. The other plane, PSA Flight 2273, was flying from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., to Charlotte, N.C. It had 70 people on board.

The controller only had about a year on the job, said Melissa Ott, National Air Traffic Controllers spokeswoman at the Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center in Oberlin.

"We watched the recording of the incident three times and each time I said, 'Oh my God,'" Ott said. "It was the closest call I have ever seen in my 18 years of air traffic control."

Cory called the encounter an operational error. She said a second controller was working with the trainee at the time.

"This ended with the aircraft taking the appropriate action," Cory said. "The controllers will be retrained."

A Delta spokeswoman said the passengers "were never in danger."

PSA is a subsidiary of Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways Group, Inc. Delta Air Lines Inc. is based in Atlanta."

RAAF C-17 Globemaster III

Now I know I've said it before, and I'll say it again...photos of aircraft just don't seem to have the same effect compared with actually being there. I'm still going to post these pictures of a RAAF C-17 Globemaster III that paid us a visit this week.

The Royal Australian Air Force recieved their first C-17 Globemaster back in December 2006. It is a heavy transport aircraft with a carrying capacity 3 times that of a C-130 Hercules.

The C-17 this day joined for a left initial and left pitch followed by a few overshoots. We were quite impressed to see the pilot throw this thing around when an early pitch was requested to sequence the heavy.

Enjoy

Air Traffic Control Staffing Crisis

Air traffic controllers and pilots have again hit out at Airservices Australia's inability to man towers as a shortage of air traffic controllers continues to bite.

The staff shortage struck again this week when Airservices was forced to close down its tower at Launceston all day on Tuesday because of a lack of staff.

The closure comes after similar problems in recent months in Canberra, Melbourne and Perth, as well as in regional areas ranging from Cairns to central Australia and western NSW. Airservices insists the closures are not a safety problem and says it has a strategy in place that should see short-term problems fixed by the end of the year.

But unions representing pilots and air traffic controllers have yet to be convinced. Australian and International Pilots Association general manager director Peter Somerville said the shortages should not be happening in a country like Australia. "Airspace closures should not be happening in a first world country, so obviously Airservices has a major problem," Mr Somerville said.

Air traffic control union Civil Air said the shortage was reaching a crisis point. While it was not in meltdown yet, it was not far off it, said Civil Air executive secretary Peter McGuane.

"It's pretty bad," he said. "There's an acknowledged shortfall by Airservices somewhere between 22 and an additional 16, depending on how you define them. "We think it's a bit more than that and it's got the potential to go a bit higher."

The problem prompted air traffic control union Civil Air to write a scathing letter to Airservices last year that claimed it was leaving airspace uncontrolled on "an almost daily basis". Civil Air also accused Airservices of attempting to hide the problem from regulatory and safety organisations, a claim the air traffic controller has denied.

The situation again came to a head in Perth last month when Qantas cancelled flights to Perth after the air navigation organisation was unable to man the tower for three hours.

Airservices blamed the lapse on sickness and said pilots had to self-monitor the air space during this time.

However, Qantas chief pilot Captain Chris Manning said that the airline had deemed it unsafe to operate in the area because downgrading of controlled air space would affect "critical ascent and descent profiles".

Civil Air's Mr McGuane said the problem was because of poor planning by Airservices and a high demand for controllers around the world. He said Airservices was already unable to replace air traffic controllers who fell sick, and the situation could get worse if more were attracted overseas.

"A lot of people have applications for positions overseas, and if they're successful in those, we think those numbers could blow out vastly and we would then be in a meltdown situation," Mr McGuane said.

He said the knock-on effect of the recent Perth closure had affected 25 aircraft, including one plane transporting government ministers to the West Australian capital for a cabinet meeting.

"Since then other places have closed intermittently," Mr McGuane said. "Melbourne tower has closed a couple of times, Launceston has been on and off for short periods due to staff shortages."

In addition to the safety issues, airlines are increasingly angry that air traffic control delays are combining with bad weather and other factors to significantly degrade on-time performance. November on-time performance figures of 79.9 per cent for departures and 77.4 per cent for arrivals were well below the long-term average, with December and January figures also expected to be down.

One airline has estimated that delays due to air traffic control problems have risen by almost a third.

Airservices concedes that poor planning prior to the arrival of the current management contributed to the issues, and notes that the problem has been exacerbated by the global shortage of controllers.

Airservices spokesman Terry O'Connor said the air navigation provider needed 894 people on consoles directing traffic and a further 106 for specialist support roles.

Mr O'Connor said Airservices was currently short 22 people on consoles and 14 in the support roles. He said Airservices had put a lot of effort into expanding its Melbourne training facility and had increased the number of courses. But he noted that it took 45 weeks to complete the course and graduates were under supervision for another three or four years.

Airservices was also hiring from overseas, but these recruits also needed additional training. It was trying to entice back Australians working overseas and attempting to attract military controllers.

Mr O'Connor said that provided Airservices was not raided by overseas operators, it expected to have filled the shortage by the end of the year.

"All up, we expect to put 98 people through this year and by the end of this calendar year, barring unforeseen circumstances, from those 22 shortages we expect to have a surplus of five," he said. "But we're maintaining that higher training regime and tempo in 2009 as well because we know we have some people coming up for retirement etc."

Mr O'Connor said the other problem for Airservices was that the shortages applied to certain sectors. He said Airservices had been hit by a bad flu season last year, and had some people who had long-term illnesses.

"If they're not well enough or they're fatigued, we don't want them on a console -- it's safer not to have them," he said.

In the case of Launceston, Mr O'Connor said one of seven staff based there was on long-term medical leave and two others had been suffering from poor health. (Civil Air Note: Launceston has only 5 controllers total)

This had affected rosters and meant that sometimes in the past two months no one had been available to fill in when a colleague was sick.

"What happens effectively then is it goes to class G (airspace) and the same procedures operate as within Port Macquarie, Ballina or Bundaberg, for example," Mr O'Connor said.

Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23138683-23349,00.html