To Roger Hope - Brisbane FIR OPS Manager :
Shame, shame, shame on you!
You’ve managed to take the black art of being a career bureaucrat to a new low in what can only be described as the most uninspired example of arse-covering and “Yes Minister-ship” I’ve seen for a very long time.
As Chimbu chuckles quite rightly pointed out (in honest john’s now removed thread on this same subject – if you’ve moved that thread to admin then can we have it back please Woomera?), by insisting that your air traffic controllers keep aircraft to flight planned tracks you are effectively funnelling all the aircraft down the same narrow piece of airspace – INCREASING the chance of a mid-air collision! This is complete lunacy!
By denying aircraft the benefit of shorter and more efficient direct routings you are not only wasting the operators money on increased fuel and maintenance costs, but by forcing aircraft to remain aloft for a longer period of time than is really necessary you are increasing the exposure of these aircraft to in flight perils. A better option would be to get these aircraft to their destination and on the ground as quickly as possible.
Modern avionics systems are able to navigate an aircraft from any point on the globe to any other point on the globe with extreme accuracy and reliability. But such systems are completely useless in the time-warped Brisbane FIR because YOU, Mr Roger Hope - Brisbane FIR OPS Manager, would have us all navigating our way from a 1950s technology VOR to a 1940s technology NDB as we are forced to take the circuitous scenic route across the great distances of this vast land.
You should be actively encouraging your controllers to issue MORE direct routings – not less. If your current work practices have difficulty coping with direct routings then it is your work practices that need changing – not the routes the aircraft fly!
The air traffic service that you manage exists to facilitate the safe and expeditious movement of air traffic – not the other way round.
The situation you have created is one where the proverbial tail is wagging the dog.
The sooner the provision of air traffic management in Australia is fully privatised the better (and I don’t mean the half-baked government owned structure of AsA).
Career bureaucrat arse-covering clowns like you wouldn’t last the first day in private enterprise.