Wokring for Airservices Australia, the safety based organisation
This is my first post and I thought i would share my experience working for ASA in the Last couple of years.
Lately there have been very publicised near misses/ tiba/ incidents involving ATC, mostly blamed on the ATC's and our union. The truth is, ATC around the country are the only thing stopping the country grinding to a halt.
Staffing is abysmal. We rely on one person turning up. Just one. If they are in a car crash/ get sick/ family emergency there is no one else to turn up. And when they do go sick, the only way to replace them is to call in some one off their day off. Very often, you will be called every day off, harassed for up to 6 or 7 different shifts. Usually there are at most 4-5 people to actually call. Often you will finish work at 6 am in the morning, and by midday they have called you and want you to start work at 4 to cover the evening shift. HOW CAN ANYONE CALL THIS SAFE???????????? ASA do. When you see a delay notam, it most likely means there is an ATC sitting at the consol for 4-5 hours without a break because there is no one else.
At any time, there might not even be a qualified ATC looking after your aircraft. To reduce TIBA, ASA introduced rules that said a room supervisor could watch the consol and traffic for upto 20 mins. They are unable to make any decisions so if there were to be an emergency such as a decompression and emergency decent, you would not get any traffic information. If this does occur and the air craft doesn't get the information, the controller on break would be responsible and stood down.
This procedure would be likened to a 737 pilot being able to be at the controls of a 747 to give the pilot a pee break, or a nurse being able to keep going on an operation while the surgeon has a cup of coffee. IT’S ALL GOOD UNTIL SOMETHING GOES WRONG.
Most controllers have not had any training for up to 2 1/2 years. Nothing! No class room, No simulator. Every so often you have to do a online training package, usually about corporate governance or maybe OHS (bearing in mind guys do a one person night shift and sit in front of a screen for hours on end because there are no staff) The computer based training is completely useless, we get nothing from it. We might as well not do it, you don't learn anything and its the only way we can get training. It is just a way to tick the box that we have done it without spending any money.
Air services is so poorly run, places like Karratha and Avalon which desperately need towers are getting busier and busier. Sooner or later there is going to be an accident, with all the 737/ F100/ 717 /A320's flying in and out without separation in amongst VFR and light IFR and what ever else you can think of. Flight Crew are so busy going in and out that it is dangerous. It’s an accident waiting to happen
People working as ATC are so unhappy, older guys often say its the worst they have ever seen it after 20 years. The moral has plummeted. New guys want to leave, the guys who have a little longer on their training bond are applying over seas and the older blokes are talking to the accountants and figuring out when they can retire. Many have gone over seas for job interviews such as Germany and Ireland, they are getting ready to go. Some groups can expect to loose about 40% of their staff to retirement and other jobs. Blokes who have degrees in engineering and things like this are also considering going into other jobs. Nobody is happy.
Its not just the money for the reason people are leaving, I think its more to do with the lack of good management, the ever increasing amounts of night shifts to save money, the constant harassment for overtime, the threat of disciplinary action if you don't do overtime, and the fact that nobody is happy to be there. It's sad that new guys so early in their career just with a few years experience want to leave. And to top everything off the CEO blames us for TIBA. The support staff that work in Canberra apparently hate air traffic controller, the last thing on their to do list is anything to do with the ATC staff. We are last priority. Yearly pay rises are often delayed because paperwork gets "lost" and things like this often happen.
The college is totally inadequate even for the standard 50 trainees, the amount of people who actually get rated from most courses is about 30% if they are lucky. And then if they try to leave Air services will sue them for the training bond. Nobody can afford to live on 30 grand for a year if they have a family, and then you have to factor in the delay of three months as experienced by the current course and then have the 70% chance that you will be shown the door if you don't pass.
The fact is, Why the hell would anyone want to work for this mob. They are a bunch of cheats that will use you until you have nothing left then chuck you out. Everyday they put money before safety of the flying public and its not going to change.