Originally Posted by
Clare Prop
I have a student who is UK trained ATC now moved to Australia. Experience in very busy airspace around London. Sent off an application to Airservices in February and nobody has bothered to even acknowledge his application.
While flying with him on Friday afternoon, Jandakot tower packed up and went home 3 hours early, having had restricted/no circuits all day. This is costing the industry dearly already. It's hard to know if PIA will actually make any difference, it is the GA operators who will be hurt the most. I'm all for them getting better conditions but it's going to come at a massive cost to others, it already has. Every session of circuits we can't do costs hundreds of dollars in lost revenue.
Time to lobby some senators and get them asking questions of who TF is in charge at Airservices.
unfortunately most of the time it is the poor old GA operators that cop the brunt of it before anyone else, and it’s heartbreaking to see.
In your example for Jandakot, without knowing exactly it sounds to me like they were already short staffed and the ATC on duty were at their maximum operational hours for the day and there was likely no one else available to keep the tower open.