Dont get carried away yet
Dick,
I was having a coffee with a colleague from my former work today and after talking to them, I decided to have a read of the letter from Airservices Lawyers to your Lawyers.
Sorry to tell you, but from my experience of the Management of Airservices , they are spinning you a line right out of “Yes Minister”. (Their response has 3 elements that could be called a 3 card trick!)
It is a SOP for before any review is started that one already has determined the result of the review. It is pointless to have the result uncontrolled.
Any review will validate what Airservices has have already done (and continue to do), else they will have to recant their stance thus far, and this would never do.
1. On the question of safety. This comes back to the question of why FIS was established external to traffic (ATC) as part of the NAS architecture in the first place? Answer: To make it all (the ATS system) safer/better.
Putting FIS back to Traffic (ATC) when they are busy makes it less safe. Civilair certainly understands it and I reckon blind Freddy can see it too.
One shouldn’t need to make the safety need in an adversarial way, but it will probably work out that the side with the cleverest spin doctors (Airservices) will be uppermost. E.g Look at the comments about the figures they have quoted already on the number of calls per day.
§ I used to work on the Flightwatch consoles and I can tell you, we had hundreds of contacts per day. These contacts and other tasks made the operator very busy at times, e.g. processing electronic data associated with Sartimes, taking phone and intercom calls (yes phones on an air-ground console) that the pilot never hears and then at the same time taking the radio calls.
§ And the radio calls were not just for weather briefings on a specific location. The calls were for diversions, delays, amendments to Flight Plans and occasionally to pass a company message such as an ETA and a fuel requirement. I doubt that they counted these.
§ I always felt that after the in-flight weather information that I passed, (being the most important after traffic information) that the pilots really appreciated it when I was able to give that little bit of service, especially if they were looking at alternatives when the weather was crappy. And despite my masters objections – I has happy for it to be “free”.
2. On the External Review. I think you will really need to use your good auspices with the next government to get the right people on the review, and to get good terms of reference. There is still a big job of work for you here.
3. On the “hold of further transition” pending the review outcome.
The hold is no big deal to get excited over - I understand that the ghosting was planned to end on 20 Dec. One would assume that the ghosting will continue until the review is sorted. Given possible new government, new minister, low priority, XMAS close down of Airservices – it will be months away unless you or RAPACs can put a fire under Airservices/.DOTARS in the meantime.
I understand that the next RAPAC is South Queensland at Archerfield on 20th November. I’m sure you can find the coordinator’s contact from the CASA website.
The AusFIC needs to keep only one person per day on the roster, weekdays only - to keep the reduced hours that they have been doing since 27 Sep. Flightwatch VHF merges onto the HF consoles outside core daytime hours. So do not think that all the staff have gone and it can not continue or even be rolled back to full service. It can, but it is an ask of the remaining staff.
I understand that if you really pushed for it, there is scope to make a full roll back of external Fightwatch on VHF except for one Frequency that was changed to ATC about a week ago. I think this rollback could be achieved very quickly with minimal fuss as the facilities are still there and (barely) enough staff to do it. There is still a couple more to take their redundancy in the next few months.
On the morale of the remaining AusFIC staff, I guess most of them are appalled at the whole thing, but their dedication to doing overtime to keep it going is amazing. There have been only a handful of times that Flightwatch on VHF has not been available due to a shortage of staff. Contrast this with the number of occasions of TIBA because ATC staff have not been available.
Where are we at today? From what I understand, in the meantime, in absence of advice to the contrary – Pilots still being told by those ghosting the Flightwatch VHF that the service is soon to be no longer available as standalone.
On the assertion by Airservices that notice would be provided to industry that the remaining “15%” of the transition is deferred, - I understand that at the time of writing there are no specific NOTAM or corrections to the AIPSUP yet.
Another thing. The cut of 19 staff in AusFIC was understood to be part of overall cuts of 200 in ATC during 2007 as part of the efficiency gain delivered by Service Delivery Environments (SDE). In reality, this cut of controllers was stymied and indeed 30 controllers were recruited from overseas. One might ask what gives here? But that would be a whole new issue for you to get your teeth into!
And a final observation. 100% safety would be achieved if no one flew. Pilots make a choice to fly and it is a calculated risk underpinned by good training, good maintenance and Air Traffic Services. The last is the responsibility of Airservices and is not up to the individual pax/pilot. IF these changes go ahead, that balance changes too.
AusFICer