Originally Posted by Vercingetorix
On a one man shift what are the backups if the one man becomes incapacitated for whatever reason, i.e. heart attack, falls down the Tower stairs, etc.?
As I tried to point out, there has to be a realistic assessment of staffing needs.
For traffic safety, there are many mitigations in the existing procedures for loss of ATC. And I'm not suggesting that single man operations are appropriate if the traffic levels are such that separation needs to be applied - i.e., they're not one at a time with long boring gaps in between.
For individual well-being, there are lots of jobs where people work on their own - bus, van and truck drivers immediately spring to mind. If we apply the same criteria as we seem to be doing for ATC, surely we need a standby driver on-board. And we have to consider exposure to the hazard - how often does someone keel over or fall down stairs at work? I grant you it happens but how often? And do we spend time at home alone - because we could keel over there too?
Please don't misunderstand me - in most ATC environments I think that single-man ops are not appropriate, but we do ourselves no favours if we hold up the safety card when it's not justified. Just like when we claim we need two (or whatever) on a night shift and then half the bods are asleep.