Originally Posted by
TCAS FAN
On the subject of late SOU arrivals my understanding is, pursuant to the original Section 106 Agreement, that flights should not be scheduled after 2300 however up to 10 flight per month may be permitted in the event of delays. That said my past experience, particularly with Flybe, was that the 10 per month limit was not the reason for diversions. The reason was normally that the airport did not have sufficient staff available to cover a late arrival;
The non availability of staff was invariably caused by NATS ATC. Late attendance was, due to a union agreement, voluntary. This was further complicated by duty time limitations. If one or both were applicable it was a case of trying to call someone in on their day off, which again was not always possible due to minimum off-duty requirements between shift cycles.
In fairness to the controllers, they have a legal obligation to not allow themselves to become fatigued to the extent that it could impact on their ability to do their job. In this respect I know of instances where they declined a request to stay late, simply because after a busy summer's day they were knackered.
From recent NOTAMs issued by SOU that temporarily closed the airport for controller duty breaks, the short staffing situation is even worse than it used to be.
As a contractor NATS have to stay competitive, cannot see that they can do so with having excess staff to cover the possibility of an occasional late arrival.
Maybe time for AGS to go the way that Birmingham did and dispense with NATS in favour of operating ATC themselves at SOU and other locations? They might even be able to entice back the ex NATS SOU controller who now manages the BHX ATC Unit? Additionally there are a number of recently retired SOU controllers/managers who I feel would welcome the short term opportunity to help set up a new ATC Unit.
Or they could just go the route of having a remote digital tower operated from Swanick like LCY. In fact the master plan shows the tower moving the other side of the runway which is likely to be remote.