BPK.....
What my colleagues have said above is essentially TRUE.
You asked what you should tell your pax? Well, the truth would be good. Note that you will not get this from NATS management.
Anyway, for your, and others edification here is The Truth:
Impending Staff shortages were KNOWN about several YEARS AGO. Little or nothing constructive was done. Indeed the NATS management of the time (mostly still "in situ" today!!)
denied there was any problem at all . Worse, they claimed LATCC AC (as was) had 60 controllers too many and Swanwick could easily be staffed.
It should be noted that Swanwick is far more labour intensive than LATCC AC was . Simply put, it requires a lot MORE people to run it. This is progress, apparently.
Anyway we finally get to "open" Swanwick earlier this year, and it finally dawns on NATS management that the operational staff, their Unions and GATCO, were all correct about the staff numbers required. And they were wrong.
They remain in denial. The tragic events of Sept 11 provide a convenient smokescreen.
Delays build. Airline customers desperately (and not surprisingly) unhappy. Richard "Kenny" Everitt admits that delays are at "totally unacceptable levels", without admitting that it was his inherited mangement team that are responsible for the mess. ]
He insists that robust measures are being put in place to "bring delays down". And these are? Dragging instructors out of the SVC (Simulator training) to staff the ops room. Getting a deal (finally) with the unions that will allow limited overtime (not that there will be many takers, and certainly not enough to make much difference).
There is a small anouncement that Swanwick is short of 41 controllers. Huh? A year ago we had 60 too many. You'd be right to ask Kenny "what the f*** is going on?"
Meanwhile..... The operational controllers that are left have to deal with a complex, new ATC system which has many difficiencies (e.g. Font sizes, refresh rates, poor ergonomics, poor RTF, Crap headsets etc etc)... and the usual busy summer traffic. And they still manage to do a damn fine job, despite all this.
There is absolutely no slack in the system, staff number wise. Many controllers have been unable to take all their annual leave due (1) OCT last year (2) Staff shortages at LACC.
There have been other issues affecting the operational staff at Swanwick. Morale is low. The end result is simple. FATIGUE . Sickness rates go up. Not rocket science is it?
So what's to be done? Simple. TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN. It is the ONLY way out. If this means restricting service delivery so that the operational watches can provide instructors, SO BE IT. If NATS keeps doing what it's doing now, the whole ops room will be closing sectors on a much, much more regular basis.
There you go. No ranting, no raving, just an honest statement. Something you will not get from the current NATS management. Why? I have no idea. "Kenny" promised us (and the customer) he'd be open and honest. Pity he hasn't lived up to his promises.
Rgds BEX