Originally Posted by fluffyfan
Goldfish, you say
Having witnessed how the traffic flows in London or the US, with many times the volume that we have here, perhaps you could enlighten me why we often end up waiting 5 min between departures (same aircraft type) on a day with not a cloud in the sky, often explained as congestion with Radar. Not trying to pick a fight, but how come they can handle the volumes they do in London and we cant handle the volumes here, is it equipment, training, different separation rules? it cant all be due to poor runway layout.
SA ATC's undoubtedly control more traffic in SA (JNB) than any other controller anywhere in Europe or the USA. Perhaps not numbers of a/c, but numbers of a/c spoken to simultaneously. Only so many a/c can be controled at any one time for two reasons. Firstly because of time constraints, and secondly to ensure there is not an information overload for the person controlling. The ATC's can only talk to so many a/c at a time. If more sectors could be open, more traffic could be moved. Unfortunately there is a staff shortage in SA, which will not be remedied in the near future. In the UK and USA, there are many ATC's on duty, and therefor they only talk to perhaps 10 a/c in their sector before handing that traffic off to another sector. In SA, ATC's also have to control large volumes of traffic out of Lanseria off 06 simultaneously to a/c out of JNB off 03. Both a/c might be flying south, so just because you don't see the a/c doesn't mean it's not there.
The ATC's are still restricted to 5 mile separation. With the small TMA, and high traffic volumes, this greatly increases their workload. This, I believe is one of the reasons the new STAR's position a/c on downwind rather than base.
I am not an ATC, but I do understand their predicament. I can absolutely 100% vouch for the fact that these professionals do try to to offer as good and expeditious a service as possible.
