Misery for Thousands

[Numpo-Nigit]

Another typical Saturday morning at NERC. Lots of unreasonable people at airports demanding to be flown to or from their hard-earned holiday in the sun. Then there are those mercenary pilots only too ready to take them, and the airlines carelessly leaving serviceable aircraft around to allow it!!! Don't they know we are short of staff??

On a serious note, this morning's staffing, whilst well short of the requirements, was nothing atypical. Despite the best efforts of everybody involved, with staff moving from sector to sector in an attempt to address the shortfalls, it has been another horrendous day for delays.

At 1pm the aggregate delay for the morning was in excess of 80000 minutes, and rising, with at least 145 flights delayed longer than one hour, some as much as three hours. Palma airport had twenty flights awaiting departure slots for various UK destinations, each delayed over an hour. Can you imagine what the terminal was like?

Using the rule-of-thumb (I don't know where the figure comes from) that each minute of delay costs the airline, on average, £50, then we are well on the way to half-a-million quid's worth this morning alone. And, this afternoon's staffing didn't look any better on paper!!!

Something MUST be done, and soon. Does anybody have any good ideas, 'cos management sure-as-hell don't seem to have?

[canberra]

what would help would be the airlines flying out of controlled airspace. why do we put ircraft in to these corridors when there is so much free airspace? yes i know there are the problems during the week with military aircraft, but not at weekends! and why not get london mil to handle some of the airline traffic?

[stopbar]

As far as I can see most upper airpace traffic is off route at weekends at least in this neck of the woods. As for using London Mil, how many controllers do you suppose are on duty in the mil ops room at weekends, when almost all mil traffic is on the ground, from my time their max 3 or 4. I don't suppose much has changed now

[Cryolosophorous]

Canberra..you said it..FREE airspace! Do you want to mix it with 6 gliders trying to oik a few hundred feet out of a thermal the next timew you bog off to see the sun? Thought not!:rolleyes:

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Canberra has a real sense of humour, eh guys? (Check his profile)

[chiglet]

Is "cranberry" [Deliberate small c
411A in disguise?:rolleyes: perish the thought:p .
IF [Heaven forfend] he IS blinkin' serious, I think that I will take 99 weeks unpaid leave, [seriously urge my colleagues to do the same,,,,,,,
And watch PPRUNE with bated [sic] breath:D
The "person" IMMHO is a twonk. If a moderator thinks fit to remove this post....fine. He/She/It is still a twonk:p
we aim to please, it keeps the cleaners happy

[Molesworth Hold]

canberra, in your long and distinguished RAF career did you ever work at an Area Radar Unit ? Manpower has always been at a premium and I doubt if it would be feasible even if it was desirable to use military resources. The first weekend of the school holidays is in three weeks time, how long will the delays be then? Any solution to this problem should have been implemented about five years ago.

[5milesbaby]

Be nice to see airlines taking level capping seriously for once. How many will be willing to cross G1 at base level, never mind never getting above FL240, or FL190 in French airspace, and what happens when a FIS cannot provide avoiding action against non-squalking a/c below FL100????? Oh, and getting that joining clearance into the zone to land, "sorry, to busy, come back in 30":o :o :o

[canberra]

no i didnt work at an area radar unit. but i was watching the discovery channel when i put my post on, item on an air canada flight from toronto to frankfurt. they mentioned about this new atc system called wass. any way people mentioned about london mil yes i know they have few people on duty at the weekend, the civil population get v annoyed when fighters fly at weekends, they also get annoyed when we fly at night. highlight of my career was 18 months at edinburgh rescue co-ordination centre, you think your working under pressure?

[AREA52]

Dear Numpo Nigit, as one of your spinning colleagues (not BRS/BHD), I agree entirely with your concerns over your watch staff numbers. I sometimes wonder whether I am spinning, or on my own watch.

With regards to the 80,000 minutes of delay (not uncommon), I make that £4,000,000.00 of additional cost to the airlines on a £50 PM basis:eek: . This is happening more days than not!

Heads should start rolling soon me thinks:)


After a huge basic pay rise, maybe one or two may consider the odd day of O/T (at a premium rate of course), but until we get the recognition and respect we deserve, nobody should assist in any way. :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Scott Voigt]

Sounds to me like the UK needs to revamp the airspace so that the civil folks can use almost all of it and then just special use airspace when the military IS using it... Works for us most of the time...

regards

[eyeinthesky]

Scott: Good idea, but please note the following which I have copied from a debate on the sense in letting civil airliners mix it with GA and OAT on the way to regional airports. Daft, isn't it!?

QUOTE
Don't think that you can get an airway put in. The new structure for the NSEA sector actually crams the civil aircraft closer together because the military want/need a bigger chunk of airspace for testing and training with the Eurofighter etc. The increasing (yes, despite 11/9 traffic is increasing) number of civil flights are being packed closer together so a few military jets a day can have space to practice. If you object, then you will be told that unless they have this space then Air Defence is compromised. Wins every time!
UNQUOTE

[Avoiding Action]

Eyeinthesky,

I bit my lip the first time I read your comment on the other thread and thought I'd let it go, but since you've repeated it I feel duty bound to reply:

Having seen the new NSea airspace plan, my colleagues and I actually believe that we are getting less useful airspace out of the whole deal. While we will happily work a sortie in 30x60nm at the moment, Typhoon will, on present predictions, take ~150x60nm to acheive its training goals. If the upper air routes and military zones (whether DAs or some other fudged name) are firmed up we will be completing less sorties each day which impacts on our training - training for flying over such benign environments as Iraq and Afganistan!

My experience is that there has been little or no restriction on the number of civil airliners working the NSea - in fact it appears to be increasing. (Fully admit I don't have figures to back this up, only what I've seen on the scope over the last few years and will quite happily be corrected.) However, bottom line for the military is that a higher proportion of training sorties are being "thrown away" because we can't complete training objectives in the busier airspace. This worries me and should worry you as well.

Reading between the lines in your post it would appear that you place little importance on this military training.

Quote "If you object, then you will be told that unless they have this space then Air Defence is compromised. Wins every time! " Unquote.

As a humble servant of you, the taxpayer, may I suggest you check your attitude - if it wasn't for years of air defence, which you treat with apparent disdain, you'd be writing your post in German or, God forbid, Russian. We all have a job to do - best we get some workable solution rather than sniping at each other.

Scott V,

Yeah, I've controlled AD in USA and love the system. You're lucky though, having a greater volume of airspace to start with. If we closed down the airpsace that we'd like to have for some of our military exercises, Swanwick would grind to a halt for a few hours. Mmmm, now if we could only fit those around the current failures we might have something!:D :D :D

AA

[NERC Dweller]

I'm not ATC so forgive me if I ask a stupid question (however a stupid question is better than a stupid mistake!)

Why not get the Tactical to run the Planner role on sectors where most of the traffic is on Standing Agreements and let the electronics handle the co-ordination? If the problem is the number of assistants then get the planner to do the assistants job as well?

Also for my info how long does it take for a student to go from starting at Bournmouth to being able to sit on there own at a LACC Sector?

[Ahh-40612]

Nerc Dweller

Unless you're being very devious, it is obvious you have little appreciation of the Nerc sysyem.

Probably the London Middle Sector ( nos 25 & 26 in Nerc speak ) has the most standing agreements - over 50 I believe.
Frequently the team of THREE or SIX can become seriously busy dealing with co-ordinations, phone calls, and a myriad of other distractions in the day to day running of the inefficient and inflexible system we have been lumbered with.

Combining of roles is a complete non-starter.

Even SRG agree with that - until SMG ask them to get a new rubber stamp made up.

There are more phone calls being made now by planners in particular than a CSC would have made back at Latcc.
Electronic co-ordinations frequently are sent just as, or even before, the aircraft actually calls on the RT prompting numerous calls to change entry or exit flight levels.

Of late, a large proportion of aircraft are actually requesting a different level to that filed - this can be for many reasons - upper winds, turbulence, flow restrictions etc. This means more manual changes have to be actioned.

Aircraft often call before the paper strips appear on the tactical's board.

Any planner phone call results in a backlog of electronic offers needing to be processed.

I could go on but I'm getting bored now.