Your observations are correct - the reasons for them may not be so clear. And it would also be fair to say that the disruptions have not even begun to begin. AirServices finds itself in a position where it is in Management confusion. A change to the board, many of the previous executive effectively forced out by political persuasion at the highest levels of government, and a ministerial office reacting to perceived threats over the last election period to party survival.
Whilst that is a political observation from afar it has had the direct effect of leaving AirServices completely unaware of it's future and management effectively paralysed to make a decision for fear of being condemned by an erratic minister and his department mandarins, he void of a political antennae, who lacks fortitude to see a decision through to the end. The senior management have in other words been unable to steer the organisation for lack of direction by it's ultimate master.
Money has been disgustingly wasted from AirServices coffers to attend to projects that start and stop erratically - most of them stop gap reactions to the latest lobbying from the various usual suspects. This malaise has filtered down to the rapidly increasing levels and numbers of middle managers, none of whom are willing to make a decision lest they risk becoming the 'patsy' when someone further up the food chain is looking for someone to blame for their latest change of heart.
Result: A lame duck management structure with a myriad of uncoordinated projects, often duplicating each other and trying to implement to achieve competing or diametrically opposed outcomes.
Of course - this costs a lot of money. So the money has to come from somewhere - hmm, how about the operational budget? Yes.
It coincides that due to some near sighted planning with the demographics of the operational Air Traffic Controllers, a huge swag of them have just started retiring, with very few new starts in the pipeline to eventually replace them. And the achieved cost savings is simply to NOT replace them. It is clearly apparent that THIS is the strategy that our massive management and administrative structure (highly paid mind you) has determined to be the solution.
OK, so what is the result of all this? Well simple math will tell you that if traffic is increasing in movements by up to 20% a year in Australia (and it is) and controller numbers in most groups are less and less every month, the remaining controllers are working more hours. And this is the case. So how do controllers work more hours? Well, firstly you compress all the shifts so they are closer together - so instead of working an 8 hours shift say 1200-2000 and coming back to work the next day fully rested at 1000 or 1200, you come back at 0600-1400. Then you do this day after day. And you do it for an extra day. And instead of having two days off after a block of shifts like that, you sometimes just have the one day off.
Also, instead of having staff to cover two sectors, you only provide staff to cover the sector combined most of the time.
And you reduce the amount of annual leave available each year.
It's really simple - it's just number crunching - I mean that is all there is to it - there are no other effects right?
Well, there are actually. You all remember the Burning the Midnight Oil Report from the Senate (we won't be having any more Senate inquiries now so lets remember what they do).
It all started with the trucking industry, and the number of drivers who were falling asleep and having accidents with other vehicles on the highways. The truck companies blamed the drivers. Eventually the truck companies were successfully prosecuted for forcing their drivers to work tired with undue pressure.
Air Traffic Controllers are currently not protected by ANY legislation to limit their working hours. There is no CAO like pilots have.
The only instrument that individual Air Traffic Controllers have is an appendix to their EBA call Principles of Rostering (POR). And guess what? AirServices from this month are actively trying to get even that stripped from the new EBA currently being negotiated!
What POR says, is that rosters will be designed to meet certain criteria - but the criteria as they stand do not prevent massive fatigue problems even today. For example - for a 7-8 hour shift working traffic, a controller is entitled to a break of... 20 minutes. And a controller can be rostered back to back shifts with only 10 hour breaks.
Of course this only covers rostered shifts - Where the pressure now comes from on the individual controllers is constant overtime. Controllers are constantly called on almost every one of their days off to come in on overtime. (Overtime is paid at 1.5 times normal rate by the way.)
So what is stopping the controller from working constant overtime and being fatigued at the radar screen / control tower? Well, as it stands, their own judgement - and currently the POR appendix to the EBA which does not allow any more than 10 consecutive shifts.
So like the truck drivers, the individual controller is put in the position under pressure of having to say no - I am too tired to work. And not just overtimes shift. You see, whilst CARS/CAOS do not protect the controller in any way with duty time limitations, they DO however require the controller to NOT work if Sick or impaired to fulfill their duties!
So, take a worse case scenario. A controller, called in on overtime, is involved in a serious incident or accident. Is AirServices responsible? (Vicarious Liability aside). Or is the Air Traffic Controller responsible for not calling in Sick or unavailable?
That is the thought process constantly going through controllers bleary minds each time the phone rings now. Or each time they feel genuinely worn out before attending a rostered shift.
And it is a result of, too few staff, inappropriate rosters, and an organisation who intentionally runs it's rosters on constant overtime. Why? Well, what is cheaper - recruiting and training a replacement air traffic controller, or paying an exsting one 1.5 times the hourly rate to plug all the holes in the roster? So that is where the money for all the other crap is coming from.
Remember, even the existing POR that offer some protection are now being pursued by management.
So when you ask about TIBA, and why there are no controllers - they are are either retired (some earlier than planned), too tired to work the overtime, or just don't exist. The other issue now is also, if new people are recruited - WHO is going to train them.
And I am glad to say, that as of 6 momths from now, it will not be me, as I am one of the many walking out the door to retirement.
And I will not be working ANY overtime between now and then.
Your issue is NOT with the Air traffic controllers - it is with accountants running an operational organisation, who care only for their own bonuses and NOT the long term sustainability of their ultimate product - SAFETY. What they do not seem to realise is that, we can not afford to have one faulty 'product'. (If you work for an airline, does it sound familiar?)
TIBA? Get used to it, or start asking some tough questions of your government.
(Just an aside, if you see Air Traffic Controllers stopping work this year, during the EBA process, which I think is likely, they will only be doing it because they are concerned about the working conditions affecting the safety and good name of their profession. The
PR department will spin it out as 'overpaid controllers holding the travelling public to ransom', no doubt aided by the friendly media.
I hope you know better than that.)