On the top desk yesterday at MACC there appeared a table entitled;
"ACC and Terminal Results Table Annex11. (Table 15).
It appeared to be a European document rating the complexity of the traffic at European ACC's. Caused a bit of controversy as the ratings went thus;
1st for complexity-London TC.
2nd-Skyguide
3rd-DFS Frankfurt
4th DFS Frankfurt
5th NATS MACC...and it went on but not until it reached number 28 was LACC AC mentioned, with NATS SCOACC coming in at number 53.
This seems to be a European Annex and maybe someone can help me with it's origin. If it is indeed genuine then the scribbled line on the bottom 'Band 4, we know the score' seems even more incontrovertable.
At a time when even our GM has admitted that we (MACC) are at crisis point with staffing, where we have been told that, even though we will be getting busier, our manning will not increase-and will even drop-before the move to SCOACC; this seems to put fuel to the fire of the whole banding issue (not again I hear you cry!).
At a time when TC is 30 controllers over staffed (from our GM) the fact that we are now regularly rostered for 2 hours on with half hour breaks and even then are sometimes unable to split busy sectors is anathema to our safety culture. ATCO's are becoming far more fatigued, all of our perks (which we all know exist) have long since gone, sickness is already on the increase and guys are not coming in for AAVA's (which we're still paid less for even though it's a valuation of the worth of your time off) because the shifts are leaving them too tired. This unit is now run on AAVA's, they WILL begin to dry up;then where do we go.We know our southern colleagues think we're wingers and our northern colleagues are a bit unsettled by the fact we dont want to join them; but for a unit ranked 5th in comlexity in Europe by an outside agency surely the very fact that our GM admitting that in our present condition we are in crisis demands urgent action. What action? Well...that's for far wiser people than me (our management?), but I would respectfully suggest that if our situation is not resolved somehow...then this unit will collapse long before the scottish move. A genuinely concerned worker in a genuinely (no really) busier ACC than we are given credit for.
ps Dont forget that when we DO get to scottish our scores will be incorporated making our average probably then lower than AC's even though the MACC sectors will, by then, probably be even busier than they are now.
