Maastricht - top of the ATC Bad Guys charts

[Henrietta Horsebox]

I'm looking at a chart for 4-10 Sept that shows Maastricht West as top of the charts for causing ATC delays.

Given how many angry calls I get from Maastricht complaining about my ATC - presentation of traffic, 'do this, do that' - I assumed that you were all as perfect as your wonderful equipment out there! I'm led to believe by my partner that you are to ATC what Chelsea are to football....a motley collection of mercenaries who get paid lots of those nice Euro things and who are (were?) the bee's knees.

As this chart says you caused more than 5 times the delays that we caused on Dover during the same period, I wondered why you're having difficulty coping!

[Avman]

Dear Henrietta,

I trust that you were just having a bad day. Just as pilots can be critical of each other, we in ATC suffer from the same unfortunate ailment. Generally it derives from a poor appreciation adjacent centre controllers have of each others particular sectors, traffic patterns, restrictions and constraints. Many of us have never visited LATCC (I have) just as many of you haven't visited Maastricht (have you?). In times of busy traffic (nearly always) tensions can get a little high and curt exchanges can be made during co-ordinations. If only units had both the staff and the time to participate in familiarisation visits we would all benefit. If you look at the already high acceptance rate for Maastricht West and compare this to the delays you mention you can only rightly conclude that without those capacity restrictions the sector would be so hopelessly overloaded that the safety of air traffic would be seriously compromised. I suggest you just come over and see for yourself. You may be surprised to discover what a great bunch of guys and girls we are, just like you, trying to do a good job under presure from ever increasing traffic, European politics and less than exemplary management.

By the way, you should see the chess game the West sector has to play to ensure that traffic is presented correctly to your Clacton sector. Anyway, do come over and visit.

[Goldfish Watcher]

hello Avman

How does one arrange a liason visit to Maastricht?

I and 5 others who have just completed our Dover/Worthing sim training are looking to visit Maastricht/EBBR/Brest. It would certainly be useful to see things from your side as we embark on our live radar training.

Any assistance/information would be appreciated.

Cheers
GW

[Avman]

GW,

Best is to contact Ms Mireille Roman on tel:
+31-43-3661352. Failing that, contact the Centre Supervisor on +31-43-3661555.

Good luck with the training!

[This message has been edited by Avman (edited 18 September 2000).]

[Goldfish Watcher]

Thanks!

[learnerdriver]

As a SATC who managed to get over to Eurocontrol recently (Hi to Ozzy btw), I can only agree with Avman. The controllers were a great bunch of people doing a difficult job (some of the sectors were crazy) and having to take crap off the Germans and French who all think they can do better and don't even come close. The controllers there have a lot of respect for the controllers in Britain and appreciate the difficult job they do. Perhaps we ought to show the same appreciation and not be so ignorant???

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If we don't believe in freedom of speech for people we dislike then we don't believe in it at all.

[Avman]

Thank you Learnerdriver. As I said, I guess dear old Henrietta was just having a bad day. We all have them!

[Henrietta Horsebox]

Avman

I was having a bad day as it happens. After 3 Mars bars, 2 Aeros and a bottle of Rosemount Shiraz I recovered. Had a really fun day today interfacing with Delta; everyone was most charming. I think that video phones might help me at least.

Being objective rather than sledging, one thing I would like to point out to you is that our ancient system doesn't tell me whether a flight has a slot through your airspace, hence when you get stroppy and tell me to descend something below you when it has 10miles to run to the boundary having just climbed it in blissful ignorance to FL330 it causes enormous problems.

I don't know how you guys cope with the Sabena fleet with their characteristic feedback-laden R/T but they appear to fly at anything except the requested level that they are flowed at!

H

[KYGMSY]

The first time I went to Maastricht, I was delayed departing by 4 hours due to a slot. They couldn't do anything for us. Probably didn't try. Every other ATC has been helpful when it comes to slots.

[ATC Watcher]

Hello Henrietta. Bad day probably. you are forgiven in advance.
The " top of the charts" in delay analysis you refer to is a very unfair system as it penalise the centre who issue the first the restriction .An example among dozens : Our combined acceptance rate for the sector covering DVR is 95 a/c per hour . It is incidentally the same sector that feed Clacton (dual airways in/out London to the East for those unfamiliar with the area )and the same sectors feeding Paris in/out to the North and Amsterdam to the South.
The demand in the aerly morning is between 130 and 150 a/c per hour. Of course we ask the CFMU to protect us, and of course we are " causing " delays. But If we did not put a restriction there, would your Clacton sector be able to accept 40 or 50% more traffic or would they in turn put the restriction ? In that later case LATCC will be the most penalising centre and will get the " blame" while Maastricht will appear as the "good" Centre. But in fact we will be handling the same traffic as before.
Be happy that other Centres are putting restrictions around you and in fact protect you from overloads. Please do not fall into the Nationalistic management trap of "blaming " the neighbors for the problems you have. We are all working extremely hard on those sectors today, on both sides of the Channel, given the tools we have .
As to the salaries, common, I have seen the parking lot at LATCC, very comparable to the one in Maastricht, and if it was paradise here, then why are there more of you applying for jobs here ? We are recruiting....
As to visiting the Centre, as a LATCC controler you are more than welcome, anytime, any day, as Avman said, a call is enough. You can also e-mail me directly. I'll arrange it.

[Lon More]

KYGMSY,
I think you are confusing Maastricht-Aachen Airport with Maastricht UAC which is the one under discussion here.

Commiserations to most of the crews flying through the Maastricht UAC over the North Sea and N. Germany today who were a bit switched on.
Moderate to clear CAT from FL250 to 330; High traffic and considerable military activity. It was extremely complex and whilst I completely understand the reason why it you did it a great ,"Yaa, sucks, boo," to the person who, after being instructed to maintain M.74 due traffic 5 miles in trail, reduced to M.65 without saying anything. That leads to total sense of humour failure on my part. Thank God the guy behind did the same thing, but not before the alarms went off.

[Zones]

Just to develop this posting...as I think there is a direct linkage here.

With various discussions/proejcts in mind on Single Sky / Onesky / European ATC without borders (or whatever you wish to call it):

What comment out there in the Pprune-world about how this would improve things ? Wouldn't airspace design (sectorisation) be better allowing for a more efficient system ?
Are there significant potential benefits ? And if not why not ? And if so, what are they ?

Please ignore the obvious "privatisation" angle to this, I am more interested in the technical feasibilities and what, if any, benefit there might be....

[Goldfish Watcher]

I don't think that single sky for Europe or whatever you want to call it would work.

Where would it all be run from? the airspace would still have to be broken into sectors which would probably be based on political geography. So, nothing much would change!

I expect that airline managers would like single sky in order to standardise route charges etc.

In my limited experience of fam flights, this doesn't seem such an issue with pilots - I think they would just like ATC across Europe (& the World?) to stop slipping into native language when speaking to their National carriers.

Any pilots/airline staff care to comment?