How many ATCOs during night shift?

[caciara]

Hello, I'm interested on HUB TWR ATCOs employment during night shift, for statistical reasons. Have you a chief during night shift? How do you organize your rest time during night shift? Thank you for your kind cooperation. :ok:

[Andy Mayes]

Where is HUB?

[caciara]

Hub means "the most important airport in each State"...:suspect:
Probably it would have been more correct if I had writen:
"HUB TWRs ATCOs".....:confused:

[Hotel Tango]

Well, the IATA code is for Humbert River Airport, NT, Australia.

[Andy Mayes]

Thanks Hotel Tango.

caciara, most of us here in the ATC section know of locations by their 4 letter ICAO codes such as EGLL and when we see 3 letter codes we think of navigational aids.

I did once know my airports 3 letter IATA code.:)

[blissbak]

HUB is not the IATA for an airport, I guess he's questioning about night ATC staffing in a high traffic airport environment .

[caciara]

You are right blissbak, I mean important airports like EGLL, LFPG, EDDM, EHAM, LEMD, etc...:ok:

[2 Dogs]

Hey sport, my airports important too.

[possibleconsequences]

One ATCO on his / her own from 2200 to 0630. No assistant, no-one else in the building. About ten or twelve movements through the night - breaks taken as and when traffic permits. UK regional airport.

[LEGAL TENDER]

At the busy Scottish Hub of Edinburgh we scrape by with 3 ATCOs on the nightshift

2 too many! ;)

[ATLATC]

At the ATL ATCT, there are typically 2 controllers and one supervisor standing watch from 2230-0630.
There is time given for the controllers to partake in a "recuperative" rest period from 1.5 to 2 hours apiece, throughout the night.

[caciara]

What a strange situation for possibleconsequences!!! Just one person for the nightshift seems to be not very safe for air traffic, and it isn't healthy for the ATCO too!!! := Which airport are you talking about??
Nobody else from european hubs??????

[Dan Dare]

ATC is all about safety!

Right up until beans need to be counted - then "safety" morphs in to something called "business risk" which means that the chance of that manager being fingered for running things dangerously thinly are outweighed by the chances of them getting a tidy bonus for it.

[Spitoon]

Just one person for the nightshift seems to be not very safe for air traffic, and it isn't healthy for the ATCO too!!At what point do things get safer or more healthy? And what are the hazards and risks that concern you?

I've worked 'one-man' night operations, not at a hub it must be said, but it seemed like a perfectly sound operation to me. Plenty of perfectly adequate mitigation for hazards both for me and for the aeroplanes. At another small airport with not much more traffic we worked two people on a night shift and it was routine for one person to take a long 'break' for most of the shift so, for practical purposes, it was the same as one-man' ops in many respects.

What matters is that a proper assessment of workload, human factors stuff and safety is done to establish the minimum number of staff needed for any particular time of day or operational circumstance.

[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.?:uhoh:

Better to be like aircraft and have a two man crew on duty.

I agree with Dan Dare on this. The bean counters rule.

[caciara]

I agree with Dan Dare too. Air traffic control needs a rational valuation and it is not permitted to be superficial. To be alone during nightshift is unsafe because it is evident, there are a lot of medical studies about physiological loss of attention and Eurocontrol produced an important document about them, on 2006: "Managing Shiftwork in European ATM". I think it should be considered by all european ANSPs, and it is not so intelligent to undervalue them...Anyway we are diverting from main reason of this post. I would like just to know how many ATCOs are employed during nightshift, in european hubs....Thank you again!!! :ok:

[Spitoon]

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.

[caciara]

I don't agree with Spitoon for many reasons. Our job is so different and more and more complex than others, that it is not possible to compare it with other jobs. Safety factor in our job, you know, must be always guaranteed, other than procedures complexity, number of lives under ATCO responsabilty, kind of damages could it happen in case of an accident, quick actions requested to the single ATCO, workload and stress factors, shiftwork are usually not regular and not in accordance with circadian rhythm, etc..etc...Please take a look to Eurocontrol Managing Shiftwork in European ATM, and let me know if it is better for ANSP to close the ATC service during night hours, than to keep it open with a single ATCO....Please come back to main reason of this post, thank you!! :ok:

[Spitoon]

caciara, I should have added the 'ATC is different, you don't understand' line to the things that don't do us any favours. :ugh:

You appear to want other people to give you a number - a number of staff on duty - without any other contextual information to support your view that single-man operations are a bad thing. I am offering the view that it's not as simple as that and that every situation needs to be considered on its own merits.

I am quite aware of the material that Eurocontrol produces. Some of it is good, some less so. Some of it is valid in today's environment, some so out of date as to be misleading. In the main it's guidance - information about things that need to be considered, and it rarely gives black and white decisions about topics. As I recall it, there is some good stuff in the document that you mention but it's a while since I looked closely at that particular book but - like all guidance - it needs to be used wisely.

To answer your question - is ot better for an ANSP to close the ATC service during night hours than to keep it open with a single ATCO - it depends. You started the thread by citing a hub operation as your example but now it's any airport. The situation is very different for services at hubbing airports than for those where the same traffic is spread out over a longer period. So you have to look at each situation and make sensible assessment of what resources are needed.

I'm not one for crying wolf or citing extreme examples to support my case but think back to Ueberlingen - how many staff were on duty, two? Or was it three? And that didn't have a very good outcome.....

[WetFeet]

When I was a controller at Edinburgh in the late 70's night shift was one controller and one ATSA, but the airport closed once the BCal mail flight landed anyway.

[caciara]

Dear Spitoon, probably you don't understand the purpose of this post. It is not, as you write, to support my view (??) that single man operations are a bad thing. Obviously I think that in every job you have to work during night hours, the management should pay attention more and more than other jobs, and not on my view, but because there are a lot of medical studies (collected into the Eurocontrol document), which had demonstrated a continuos sleep debt with possible and serious health consequences. In our job, other than preceeding factor, it is very important to mitigate every unsafe condition, and in my opinion it is quite strange to leave an ATCO alone who could be sleepy, just for economic reasons!!. In my opinion there is no reason to justify it. If the ANSP considers that the air traffic during night hours is not enough to justify at least 2 ATCOs for each operative position, it should close the ATC service. Anyway, I say again, it is not the purpose of this post, I'd like just to know the ATC staff number for european Hubs during night hours, for my statistical reasons. That's all....

[sambatc]

i'm not sure an anonymous forum is the best place to gather statistical data...

[caciara]

Why don't you try sambatc?? Are you worry about something?? I don't find any dangerous data. I work in LIRF TWR and during night hours (23.00/07.00) we are 2 ATCOs for each frequency (TWR and GND), so 4 ATCOs for night shift, for about twenty movements through the night...:mad::p