Unfortunately- very unprofessional!!!!!!
Part of my role is to track ATC performance at the 3 major East Coast airports.
We have a set of arrival rates which have been internationally benchmarked and agreed with our customers and stakeholders, and we provide daily reports on our performance in the morning peak hours on our website. We have been doing this for the last two years, and you can get some idea of what we are reporting under the "Performance Report" icon on our home page. You can use this URL :
http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/...ep/default.asp
This focus on performance has allowed us to make improvements to about 12 of these rates in the past two years. They are under constant scrutiny .........., and further rate rises are pending, particularly with the 16 PRM operation at Sydney.
Every four months the Capacity and Service Improvement Forum (CASIF) of which Qantas is a member reviews ATC performance as part of its Terms of Reference, and makes recommendations about changes to rates.
We are also capable of doing one off reports on request to assess performance when apparently abnormal performance is suspected.
I have been asked by two of our ............ Managers who were passengers on your flight QF xxx (BNE - MEL) on xxxday evening xxxx July to do a report on the ATC arrival performance at Melbourne in light of some quite derogatory comments made over the aircraft PA by a member of the Tech Crew.
The comments were along the lines that Air Traffic Control were delaying Flt xxx for no apparent reason, that given all of the new equipment that ATC had their performance was poor, and that we were back to the bad old days of holding, "remember that?". The inference was that ATC were not doing their job.
I've extracted the relevant information from our TAAATS system and it shows the following.
RUNWAY IN USE
The runway in use was Runway 27, with a 15 - 30 knot swinging westerly wind. The cloud base was scattered at 3000', with some cloud at 2500', and visibility reduced in showers to 8 klms.
AGREED ARRIVAL RATE
Under these conditions, Visual Approaches were being conducted with an agreed arrival rate of 25/hr
TRAFFIC DEMAND
The peak evening hour for arrivals is 1730 - 1830 (local time) and on xxxday there were 24 aircraft with actual ETAs in this hour, the first ETA being 1741.
21 aircraft were actually landed in the 49 minutes of the hour after 1741. This is equal to a pro rata rate of 25.7/hr.
PEAK DEMAND IN THE HOUR
The peak demand in the hour was 14 ETAs in 20 minutes (being 1744 - 1804). QF xxx had ETA no 12 (1802:38) of the 14.
14 ETAs in 20 minutes requires an arrival rate of 42/hr. The rate available due to the strength of the wind was 25/hr.
The fourteen aircraft in this peak demand cluster were all landed in 31 minutes which gives a pro rata arrival rate of 27/hr, which is 2 above the agreed rate.
Unfortunately the position in the arrival cluster of QF xxx (12TH of 14) meant that this flight was one of 4 aircraft that due to arrival congestion had in excess of 10 minutes delay in this peak demand period.
QF xxx landed at 1813:45 for a delay of 11:12sec.
The average delay for the hour was 5.9 minutes, and the maximum delay to one aircraft was 19 minutes.
At around 1800 the wind eased to below 15kts, and as soon as was practicable, runway 34 was brought into operation for "land and hold short" operations to commence. The first landing on 34 was at 1816, and from there the actual arrival rate increased to 41 per hour until the subsequent arrival cluster had been cleared.
I would appreciate it if you could bring this email to the attention of relevant Fleet Manager, and ask that he discuss with the Tech Crew concerned with a view to having PAs remain as a statement of the facts, not a personal interpretation based on someone's judgement of what might be happening.
One of the reasons we have developed an open reporting system on performance is to ensure that there is a better understanding of scheduling demands, weather/runway usage, and their impacts on delay. It also allows a multi disciplined group to track those delay trends through CASIF and to make some universal judgements about how the whole industry can address the problem.
xxxx xxxxxxx can bring you up to speed with the work that is being done in a co-operative spirit.
Regards,
xxxx