Having read the statement from the IAA website, i am again dismayed but not surprised. I would second ock1f, to keep this as business like as possible and not get personal.
To dispute a few points:
Quote
"The Authority is satisfied, that through custom and practice, overtime arrangements applying to Air Traffic Controllers form part of their conditions of service. Of course it would be better if overtime was not necessary. However, in any operation requiring cover over 24 hours, extra attendance will feature as a means of addressing short notice absences such as sickness."
These schemes are in place, but go look at back issues of the Network news and you will see occassions where sectors in adjacent centres are closed, and the stated cause is "Staff Shortages" or even on occassion, it actually states "sick Leave"
This brings me to point 2:
Quote
"It is common practice among all Air Traffic Service Providers to apply traffic restrictions where demand exceeds the capacity of the system. Air Traffic Controllers are very well protected from overload through a defined workload threshold."
This in simple terms is Flow Control/Management.
These particular words are "dirty words" as far as Shannon Management are concerned. Whie restrictions do get put in place for holiday flights on the T Routes, flow restrictions are never implemented in Shannon for regular day to day NAT traffic, or are a lower number of NAT tracks requested due to staffing shortages.
Staff are left to cope, and sitting in for in excess of the 2 hour max is common practice when staffing is below minimums on very busy days.
If this is queried by staff, the response is generally not pleasent,
and the standard answer of "Staffing is at the discretion of Management" is regurlarly used.
Does this mean that as a consequence of over worked controllers, passenger safety is also at the discretion of management.
