The West, 11 July 2012
Airport snarl-up a 'nightmare'
Geoffrey Thomas Aviation Editor, The West Australian
Updated July 11, 2012, 2:20 am
A new system to allocate landing and take-off slots at Perth's overcrowded airport is not working properly, delaying flights and putting pilots under stress.
In a letter leaked to The West Australian, the Regional Aviation Association of Australia has told its WA members that air traffic control provider Airservices Australia has admitted the system is failing and that too many pilots are forced to declare "fuel emergencies".
Airservices recently introduced the Metron system to try to better manage the limited runway capacity at Perth Airport.
The system gives priority to incoming flights originating more than 800 nautical miles from Perth, meaning a flight from Broome or Adelaide will get clearance to land ahead of a flight from Karratha or Albany. Most of the critical fly-in, fly-out flights come from sites within the 800-nautical-mile radius.
This is creating a bottleneck with many flights being put into holding patterns for up to 40 minutes and forced either to divert or declare a fuel emergency - indicating the plane will run out of fuel before it reaches its intended destination if it continues to stay in a holding pattern - to be given priority to land.
The Metron system was introduced to ration the limited slots at Perth Airport and to try to stop long and wasteful queuing for take-off or holding for landing.
According to the RAAA, the acting chief executive of Airservices, Andrew Clark, has admitted the system is not working.
Airservices told the association they were forced into Metron because of the congestion at Perth.
In an official response, an Airservices spokeswoman said it was "well aware of a number of concerns that some regional airlines have expressed with the deployment of Metron in Perth".
"We have been working with individual operators and industry bodies (including the RAAA) in recent weeks to ensure that the benefits of the software are realised," she said.
"Based on airline feedback, Airservices is also reviewing procedures which determine which aircraft use the Metron Traffic Flow tool to better improve the overall air traffic flow into Perth."
RAAA says that as a result of the chaos, on-time performance for many airlines has slumped from 90 per cent to 50 per cent.
Some operators have told The West Australian pilots are also being put under pressure to meet slot times, adding to stress. Missing a take-off slot can mean a delay of up to two hours.
One airline said the system "was a nightmare".