airservices australia experienced ATCo

[atco44]

Hi there,

Can somebody answer some questions about Airservices and airspace/air traffic?

1. What is the traffic density over australia - I mean at the ACC's(bussy parts), if somebody can, please comare this to Europe.
2. How many A/C does an ATCo handle at time (occupancy counts).
3. What is the size of sectors(this might be quite hard to answer) :))
4. How does the typical 8hr. Shift look like?(how many hrs. On the radar vs. Freetime)

Thank you SO much!!

[ACMS]

Why don't you just take a look at FlightRadar24 mate.

Try several times a day to compare busy periods at each.

[atco44]

Yes, I did that several times, but you can't see how many sectors are open at the time,and which sector is handling which traffic. so you have no clue about the ATCo workload.

But thak you for idea anyway :)

[stevep64]

Why don't you just take a look at FlightRadar24 mate.

Because it doesn't show all the aircraft being controlled, just those with ADS-B.

The OP would be better off asking this question in the ATC issues forum.

[Knackers]

1. Don't know. Workload isn't dependent on traffic density but the mix of aircraft types, surveillance and procedural traffic, seasonal thunderstorm activity, etc. Those who have come from Europe have told me that they're just as busy here as there but not for as long. One told me that if they had "this much" traffic in Europe, they would have had radar coverage. Well, they didn't have radar here - but still had to work the traffic.

2. Don't know. Never heard the term "occupancy count" before. The busiest I've been is running a sequence of 17 aircraft, jets and turbo-props, radar and procedural separation, working with the Flow, no one to assist me. Plus threading the departures out, too. I was drowning not waving.

3. Don't know. Very big oceanic and continental sectors with many VHF frequencies and CPDLC, to smaller ones close in to the capital cities. Some overseas controllers are working sectors bigger than the countries they've come from.

4. Varies. Many times I worked 7 hours straight without a break at night. But I think things have improved a bit. Two hours on, 30 minutes off wasn't unusual on my sector during the day.

[atco44]

Cool, thank you for answer.

Are there any other important fact I should know about ASA? I read some not very positive articles about them. Somebody from ASA to confirm/deny it's true what was written? If somebody can compare ASA to european providers, I would be very thaknful.

Thanks ;)