I have it on good authority there was no mention of any 'Staff Shortages' in the notam.
As has been stated previously, you will not see that phrase again in a NOTAM.
It has been banished to the far reaches. The full weight of management wrath awaits any mortal with the audacity to tell the truth.
Last year some time we received an internal instruction that those words must be removed from all NOTAM pro formas - staffing problem solved. Bonus time!!!
Unfortunately the delays and holding that you often see are frequently due to restrictions imposed upon ATC's by the lack of staff. Recently saw COORD come through asking for 5mins between aircraft departing on same SID.
Result = you get delayed and blame ATC, but the reality is everyone (left) in the background is working like a one armed paper hangar making sure you get there safely with absolute minimum resources.
Now we are going to rebrand ourselves so we can be reborn and put all these pesky staffing issues behind us. ONce we have a new brand, we have a) a line to judge our achievements by and b) a shiny new ball to distract the YSCB HQ dwellers from the real issues.
