Originally Posted by
jj232
Its all purely because ASA management has always believed the job can be done with less people, Covid was the green light to take risks they never would’ve any other time. Obviously this was never the case and what you're seeing now is the result of the decision to make large numbers of ATCs redundant. They have now gone on a large training and hiring drive but it will take 10 years to get numbers to where they need to be.
It's all based on numbers. It's a bit like a flying organisation that operates 6 different aircraft types, and one or 2 of the pilots can fly all 6 types. One of these multi endorsed pilots with 1000's of hours resigns or retires and is replaced by a low hours pilot with a single endorsement. Pilot numbers are unchanged.
Same, same with ATC. Towers and TCUs have ATC's with multiple endorsements and they are being replaced with ATCs with just a single traffic endorsement. And the experience that went out the door with RIS (redundancies) was staggeringly high - most ATCs had 30+ years experience. Experience in complex weather and traffic patterns, experience in saying "NO" as appropriate and experience being able to safely regulate traffic when required.