We wish we knew when staffing would get to being what we need, however we do get by very well with what we have. The problem at the moment is that many of the "old boys" are hanging up their headsets, so its as if as soon as one validates another retires. The college has also gone through a huge change with the courses hindering recruitment for a while so hopefully soon that will start to kick in and begin the improvement. However there is only a finite number of students that we can train at the same time, due to seats, number of mentors, and mentor competency (ie. they also need time on their own, currently 50%). With the traffic levels rising so much its becoming harder (and longer) to get students through, but slowly but surely we are getting there. The other thing to cause a problem is the increasing number of sectors we now have. Soon the West End at Swanwick will become 7 sectors from the current 5, plans are in place for the Hurn sectors to increase, TC just seem to get more and more airspace, the last over Clacton, and I would expect more of this to happen. Will LHR adopt new positions when T5 and the new tower opens? Does Manchester have more positions with the new runway now open? These all need more staff, not only to sit there working but also extra to cover breaks. To give you an idea, for 8 seats open we need 11 staff to cover breaks so we do not go out of hours. If the seats open becomes 10, like the West End and Dover/Worthing can do, the number needed becomes 14. When the West End gets resectorised they could have 14 seats open, so thats 19 staff needed. At the moment its rare to get any more than 12 on the grouping, so we need to find 7 more staff PER WATCH (5 watches) just for the West End. Some of this can be eased with the AAVA's (overtime in English) and the tactical deployment of staff, ie (Theoretical)West End goes 10 seats from 12 to 2pm, but back to 6 for the rest of the afternoon, so 14 staff needed becoming 9 at 2pm. The 'spare' 5 can then be moved to Hurn/Central sectors dependant on where the traffic delays/levels are, and once they quieten again, back to the West End for a final flurry. This is where the LAS's get together with flow and work out who to flow when, and who to deploy where. Hope thats not too mind bending, we're so used to this happenning now that its almost second nature, but hopefully things will ease very soon.
