Daventry closed?

[Hydroforming Bushmaster]

I found this

http://www.cfmu.eurocontrol.be/chmi_public/ciahome.jsp?serv1=aim&aim=00045592

What's going on down there at swanwick? Extra people being put on days to cater for the bucket and spaders?

[250 kts]

This just goes to show what a knife-edge the staffing situation is at LACC.

The rostering has been centralised which is not working rather than letting the watches sort out their own staffing.

Things were by no means perfect at LATCC, but there were very few occasions over the years where sectors had to be closed, whereas it is almost a regular occurence at Swanwick.

The nights are a particular problem as management seem to forget that we are a 24 hour unit. The days are full of staff but the nights are just too tight. Lucky it was DTY where the airspace structure allows traffic to transit beneath. It won't be long till it's CLN or North Sea and then see how the re-routes work coming back from say LCLK or LTBS.

Management really need to bite the bullet on this one and roster just 2 more on nights to alleviate this problem. It may even enable them to attract traffic back into the FIR and hence boost the revenues of the company.

Funny, this was never a problem pre-PPP!!!!!!!!

:mad: :mad: :mad:

[160to4DME]

2 nights with 27,28,32 and 34 completely closed...?

What's the knock-on for 5,10, MACC,TC ??

And are there contingencies for the beginning of the oceanic eastbound wave in the morning....are 29 going to get all the inbounds to LTMA thru Liffy, IOM and DCS ??

Another great PR opportunity. :o

160 on a beach :D

[BEXIL160]

The reality is really rather simple.

THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH CONTROLLERS

This simple fact STILL does not seem to be understood by NATS.

THERE WILL NOT BE ENOUGH CONTROLLERS FOR A LONG TIME

Another simple fact that the powers that be seem incapable of understanding.

There has effectively been no validation training for "new" students. There will be none for a long time. Meanwhile retirements, long and short term sickness etc etc all continue to erode the number of ATCOs available.

Just to make matters worse, it is also fact that Swanwick is more labour intensive than LATCC. In simple terms, you need more people to run it.

Morale is low. The lack of a decent pay rise, poor payments for OJTIs, a multitude of ORO rostering cock-ups AND MORE, all contribute to this.

Combine this with a busy summer and fatigue will soon set in. People will start to come down with minor ailments. Sickness rates will inevitably increase. There is NO sickness cover available.

Sorry to be the messenger of not so good news, but this is the HONEST TRUTH. Something that NATS management seem incapable of facing.

BEX

[Nogbad the Bad]

Well said Bex........I think you've summed it up rather nicely......

WHAT A BL***Y SHAMBLES !!!!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Red Four]

Call me thick, but if NATS are not willing or able to provide any service in this airspace, what is the point of it being Class A airspace? I bet the airlines are well chuffed at being denied acces to whole chunk of U.K. airspace.

Should it not revert to Class G airspace in these circumstances? at least then the airlines could assess the risk and decide whether they want to use it, or not, instead of it being completely a 'no go' area, due (some might say) to the ATC providers incompetence.

[BEXIL160]

I think the people "assessing risk" would be the insurance companies.

So you want to fly in Class G airspace? Firstly you're gonna be restricted to 250kts, it's see and be seen don't forget. Secondly who's gonna give you any sort of radar service (or don't you want one?). The Mil? Nice chaps though they are I dare say they are mindful of the French attempt to do just that in the 1970s, when their Military ATC managed to ram two together over Brest. Insurance companies take note of these things. I also don't think our mil have the resources either (victims of cuts themselves).

No. It's a nice idea, but a bit of a non starter. At least for airlines.

Lets not get too far off topic. LACC rostering is a bit like those childrens puzzles where you slide tiles around up/down/left/right to make a picture. Except there is always one missing to let you move the tiles. No matter how you move the tiles, there's still a gap. In LACC's case, we've got more gaps than tiles.....

BEX

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

I was told yesterday that a very senior person who had visited West Drayton described it as just like a telephone call centre - a few people sitting at desks wearing telephone headsets, etc. So, in future, when a/c call I shall say "Press 1 for a radar heading, press 2 for descent clearance, press 3 for avoiding action".

Things don't change much..... 20+ years ago a senior suit spoke to staff at Heathrow and told us that for accountability reasons we were only worth the felt tip pens we used to mark strips!!!

[Nogbad the Bad]

Trouble is, HD, they still think the same !!!!!

[crowman]

Bexil 160, you have hit the nail on the head, retirements and the like will outstrip validations for the next 2 years at least. Arriving at Swanwick the training programme has been shown to be non-existent [no fault of the present training management I must add] The training system has been altered since O-Date due to the fact that the original ideas were flawed and would not work.Training is meant to be the key to our future so INVEST IN IT. :mad:

[The Manager]

I am sure that the management are aware of all this.

The first rule of management is that 'if it is not your problem, don't ask any questions, it may become your problem'

The second rule of management is 'that if it is your problem, say nothing for as long as possible'. The longer time that passes, the easier it is to dismiss it when someone does query it.

I m sure that an answer would be that there was as staff shortage 'due to unforeseen events' . Given this the most appropriate action was taken to disrupt the least number of flights possible. Given that no actual routes were closed (Just level capped) very little inconvenience was caused !! :D :D

[eyeinthesky]

The problem lies in that the ORO (under management instruction) roster the bare minimum for night duties. This is enough to staff the sectors (the West End boys and girls might dispute the number needed..!) and NO contingency. Thus, when someone goes sick there is insufficient cover and sectors have to be closed to provide breaks. At least at LATCC we had contingency available to cover this.

Someone said to me the other day that it was accepted by management that they should continue to populate the day shifts with spinners and keep night duties on minimum manning and if necessary take the hit on closing sectors on night. This would have a less serious impact upon 'service delivery' than having restrictions on the sectors during the day. Politically, the management can blame the sector closures on 'unforeseen sickness' and nobody who matters complains. Good, eh!?

Keep a wary eye on the flow advices for the next couple of nights. From what I hear there are already insufficient staff to run the West End and Central areas due ongoing sickness..

[Scott Voigt]

Amazing stuff... Just shut stuff off when you can't be bothered with staffing the facility correctly because it will look bad for the bottom line...

I wonder how many folks would **** and moan if they did the same thing with the fire services or the EMS folks????


regards

[crowman]

According to NATS financial reports traffic is down by 6.4% over March last year, however revenue is down by 11% due to the fall in transatlantic traffic. The article goes on to say the bulk of NATS revenue is from transatlantic a/c due to size, routeing etc. Therefore a disproportionate amount of NATS revenue is earned by the West end and North bank ATCO's on nights who are taking most of the pain from the ORO on rostering. Every night, flow try to shift as much of this high revenue traffic South into Brests airspace, as we MAY not have the staff in the morning. Last cycle on my nights we moved 15 A/C out of Sector6/9 into Brest. A job well done!! It lost NATS the revenue from these flights and this happens every night so that we can staff on the absolute minimum. THE ECONOMICS OF THE MADHOUSE!!:confused:

[fish food]

Crowman: Easy way of boosting transatlantic revenues -

"Good morning customers, your oceanic clearance is brought to you today by our proud sponsors the Airline Group and HM Govt., working together in perfect partnership, customers should note that flight level three five zero, speed mach decimal eight four, is now available on track bravo with no ATC time restriction, what am I bid...?"


:D :D :D

[crowman]

Fish food, Good idea but how could you auction off direct routeings? Maybe this could all be a task for the LAS to earn his keep?

[Big Nose1]

Crowman,
excellent point about transatlantic revenue and west end night manning. How many thousands of pounds of revenue have we seen rerouted into Brest virtually every night because the powers that be want to reduce manning at night. :mad: :mad: :mad:

As for LAS and earn his keep, now thats a whole new topic, perhaps i`ll start a poll the subject!!

[ALVIN BUNCE]

Whilst Bex is correct in his general satement about staff shortage, it's eyeinthesky who's hit the nail on the head in this particular case.

On the morning duty immediately following the night closure of Daventry, there were so many staff on the North Bank that 4 of them took leave and the last was out of the door by 10:00! Even after they'd gone, there were still controllers wandering around looking for things to do so the spinners were gradually released as the morning progressed with even the LASs going by midday.

Question for any management/ORO staff who'd care to answer: how can you justify closing a sector because of lack of staff when unnecessary day staff are supplied to a morning watch that demonstrably doesn't need them? :confused:

I know it's not easy in the current climate to persuade staff to change duties at short notice but, if the deal was right - one night in exchange for 2 day duties, for example - they might just have got some takers. Unless I missed something, though, they didn't even seem to try.

ALVIN

[Cavemonster]

ALVIN

Should you have been unaware, Daventry sector was closed two nights in a row.

Someone working the nights said that everyone was really fed up. It's a big dent to professional pride to mess everyone around all because the managers want to own the rosters - and thereby 'manage' the staff rather than the workforce owning them.

It's dreadful that we should provide an inferior level of service and morale is low......who gains from all of this?

Now we are privatised, shouldn't the regulators set NATS some parameters within which they operate? If things don't improve at the coalface we'll be shutting the whole place during the nights come Christmas. Nice to avoid night shifts, cost-effective, but what sort of service is this????

[120.4]

Didn't one of the rail companies get heavily fined and then lose its franchise last year because it didn't have sufficient drivers to run the services it was contracted for? If I remember correctly, when they took over the franchise they sacked a number of drivers to get the costs down; then they didn't have enough to run the services. Ofrail warned them, then fined them and then pulled the plug.

It is unacceptable that NATS should be running things in such an unprofessional manner and it reflects very badly on us. Isn't one of the NATS objectives to be the world leader in ATS provision?


Perhaps it is time that the CAA fined us for sector closures.

Point 4:(

[BEXIL160]

Which leads us very interestingly into........

What do the PPP documents actually SAY about service provision???

It's not just sectors that have been closed. The FIR service has also not been available.

CAA SRG ATSSD regulate the safety side of things, but WHO is responsible for ensuring that NATS provides a service appropriate to the terms of it's Licence? Are there ANY penalties if it is in default?

Answers pls....

BEX

[Bigears]

I have heard that ICAO require an FIR service to be provided.