Independant article - Fines for air delays will 'affect safety'

[Caractacus]

Fines for air delays will 'affect safety'
By Clayton Hirst
08 June 2003


Air traffic controllers have warned that proposals to reduce delays at airports will "compromise safety".

The Civil Aviation Authority wants to impose new penalties on National Air Traffic Services for delays cased by controllers. If it misses the targets then Nats - whose shareholders include British Airways, Virgin, BMI, easyJet, BAA and the Government - could be fined up to £10m.

But Prospect, the controllers' union, believes that this will put too much pressure on Nats staff. David Luxton, national secretary of Prospect, said: "There seems to be economic regulation in isolation of everything else. Without regards to safety then this will compromise safety. The proposals will lead to more overloads and put a tremendous strain on the individual air traffic controller."

The CAA is considering setting Nats a target of no more than a 1.2 minute- average delay per flight. This compares to a 2.2 minute- delay for 2002-03, reported in Nats' annual accounts filed at Companies House on Friday. Nats' latest business plan sets a target of 1.5 minutes' delay.

The CAA is set to make its final ruling this week. A Nats spokesman said: "We would never allow safety to be compromised and neither would the regulator."

Nats' accounts show that it made a profit before tax and exceptional items of £12.7m, compared to £4.4m in the previous year. After exceptional items, Nats lost £29.1m compared to £79.9m in 2001-02.

[PPRuNe Radar]

Interesting to see where this goes.

Maybe NATS could counter sue everyone who misses or busts a slot ?? ;)

Seriously though, if this does come about, then I think we should be pushing for delays to only be counted where the fault is solely ATCs ... for example due staffing or ATC equipment. Reasons such as capacity, weather, and military activity should all be taken out of the equation. I have to assume that they are included at the moment as the flow regulation is attached to a ATC unit rather than a cause.

Capacity is the obvious one which racks up the vast majority of delay. ATC are very limited in what they can do to change the capacity. We can't build more runways, better ground infrastructure, ignore noise constraints or get more airspace at the drop of a hat. Maybe we need to get the CAA Regulator to agree with us a SAFE capacity limit for each sector and airfield which we serve. We should then only be penalised if the delays are caused because we regulate numbers below that agreed figure.

Any NATS Performance people care to comment ??

[BEXIL160]

I would like nothing more than the Regulator (CAA) to set the capacity limits for sectors and Airports.

Sadly they (CAA SRG) lack the expertise to do so. So who sets sector capacity then?

At LACC, NATS itself. This (aparently) is achieved through a working group that doesn't seem to have any operational ATCOs (or ATSAs) from the sectors concerned. It does contain members of the LAS groups concerned, but given their remoteness from reality, and in many cases unwillingness to say NO to sector capacity increases, one wonders at their effectiveness.

Question: Have sector capacities been increased without being "tested" properly? (I don't know, does CAA SRG?)

Heres a piece of info to help answer that question.

NATS bases it's own safety performance on "losses of separation". It does not count Overload reports (often stemming from sector capacity increases) as "safety related" if no loss of separation is involved.

Draw your own conclusions

rgds BEX

[granny smith]

I'd be interested to know if there are specific sector loadings published for individual positions at airports or is it just ACC Sectors?

Perhaps someone from TC or elsewhere could comment?