Do you see these quotes:
Personnel situation
It had been clearly identified that staff shortages in certain areas were placing a demand on the
remaining staff to increase their workload or on management to reduce the level of services
provided.
The recruitment of new staff often fell short of the numbers required and made realistic planning
difficult. The staff shortage made it difficult to conduct refresher trainings and had resulted in
rostering difficulties.
It had a negative effect on staff moral and the controllers perceived it as a lack of support from
the company.
and
The practice of rostering only two ATCOs had developed because of the personnel situation.
The former system had scheduled three controllers for the night shift. It ensured that two controllers were always at their workstations and the third took a break. That this controller took a
longer break during times of low traffic became unofficial practice. This practice was maintained
as the night shift was reduced to two controllers.
From the FBU report on the Uberlingen tragedy (full report at:
www.bfu.admin.ch/en/pdf/ Ueberlingen/Investigation_Report.pdf ).
A colleague at Swanwick ACC London says to me that UK NATS is making procedures to reduce the night manning to only two ATCOs meaning only one on duty at one time. This is very disturbing so soon after such tragedy. Why do they do this please?
The BFU report has many recommendations as:
Safety Recommendation No. 02/2003
The FOCA should ensure that the ACC Zurich is manned with the minimum number of air traffic
controllers as follows:
• There shall be at least two controllers on active duty at all times.
• There shall be at least two controllers to manage enroute sectors; i.e.: one Radar Planner
(RP) and one Radar Executive (RE).
Do you not learn the lessons in England??
Eury.