ATSIN 23- CAA Policy ATSOCAS

[Evil J]

There is more than a little concern at my unit (which operates with class D airpsace, is not a LARS unit but frequently provides ATSOCAS) about the implications of the recent CAA publication of ATSIN 23. Particularly the final paragraph which states

"...attention is drawn to the CAA's expectation that ATS units should provide the service requested by the pilot of an aircraft operating outside CAS whenever practicable."

So in essence the CAA is saying to us that if a low cost carrier starts up at a near by, competitor airfield, with maybe only an ATZ and procedural approach control, when they take off and route direct to destination past our zone we are "expected" to provide them with a free service almost certainly a RAS given that the ATSIN also states that Public transport flights not able to route inside CAS should "utilise the highest level of air traffic service available." Now if we lived in a country where ATC was funded by the Government for the greater good (as I believe it is in the US) then fine; but the last remnants of this system dissappeared when NATS was privatised (sorry PPP'd)

As far as we are concerned we are a private business operating for profit and will endeavour, out of the goodness of our heart and to facilitate a known traffic environment in the vicinity of our zone, work other traffic where capacity exists-but to have the CAA say that it "expects" it has given concern to many people on this unit-and I would expect many others working in a similar situation will feel the same.

[alphaalpha]

Hi Evil J. I have two quite different thoughts in response to your post.

1. I fly as a PPL and quite often route adjacent to Luton airspace. Luton was, as I'm sure you know, formerly a LARS unit and provided a very good radar service to pilots routing nearby. Almost all the airspace around Luton is busy and often confined by the base of the LTMA, so the service was very welcome. When Luton gave up providing LARS, they would normally only provide service to Luton traffic or transit traffic. Their LARS was sorely missed and there was quite a lot of Pprune postings, here, in the Private Flying forum and in the 'On Track' forum. In recent months, I have noticed that Luton radar are often willing to provide ATSOCAS on request, and I have not had a request refused for quite a few months. I assumed that this change of heart was as a result of controllers preferring to know about traffic just outside their airspace, and genuinely preferring to be helpful, in the wider interest of increased safety, when capacity was available. However, perhaps ATSIN 23 was also part of the reason. Whatever, the 'unofficial' service is a thoroughly good thing.

2. There is a worrying implication in your post, that ATS units might provide priority service to their own traffic in preference to competitors' traffic. This is really divisive and would surely put ATCOs in a very uncomfortable position. It's one thing to give priority to your principal task, ie service in your own airspace, its another to disciminate against traffic from a competitive airfield. A big point was made at the time of NATS privatisation, that safety would not be compromised. Further, commercial traffic from the other airfield is likely to be IFR and paying route charges. These charges may not go to you, but they are paid nevertheless. I suggest that the CAA's remarks are a thoroughly good thing for air safety. It also provides a reason for an increase in facilities, if you find you cannot provide what is expected on capacity grounds.

Regards

[Barnaby the Bear]

I agree that you would prioritise with the traffic in your zone, and when traffic permits provide the best possible service to others. But the original post reads as if you are would be reluctant to provide the best service possible to a carrier, just because it isn't generating money.
That to me is more worrying.
If I have read this wrong I apologise.:}

[Evil J]

AA-the post doesnt really apply to GA but more to Commercial Air Traffic that declines to go in the airways structure out of choice, and then "expects" (CAA's words not mine) us to provide them with a service when we are already busy dealing with our traffic that has done the correct thing and routed via airways. The airways system is there, it works well and provides a means of handling large quantities of traffic, in a safe, known environment-A RIS or RAS, to be provided properly requires significantly more work from a controller than handling traffic in airways. The point of the ATSIN is that it places a burden on ATCO's to provide a service when they may otherwise consider themselves too busy; should this inattention then lead to an incident the prosecution would no doubt say that the controller shouldn't have provided that service if he knew that he didn't know all the traffic that existed (as you couldn't possibly in the FIR); this may well be deemed criminal negligence (entering willingly into a situation known to be dangerous)

Personally I do not mind providing ATSOCAS, the objection is to the CAA upsetting the status quo by stating that it is "expected".

Further to your second point, post PPP I believe the only reason that safety has NOT been compromised within NATS is due to the professionalism of the controllers therein. As I hoped was clear from the original point I believe that air safety is in the nations interests and as such should be funded by the government and only levvy fees to cover costs (similar to the way NATS was run pre-PPP in the good old "not for profit" days)-I didn't really want to go into that as its a separate thread really.

As far as only providing a service to our traffic goes, I don't really see how that is divisive. We are provided by the airport, for the airport-not for charitable services; I don't get my car serviced for free although its in the interests of pedestrians that the brakes don't fail!

This may be a hard line, but its the way of the modern world.

(Edited for 'words twice !!)

[BEXIL160]

Not much to add to the ATC side of things but I will add this....

Flying in the "FIR", or more correctly Class G airspace, is demonstrably less safe than flying inside CAS. Even with a good LARS and in receipt of a RAS, the FIR contains a lot of traffic whose intentions are "Unknown" and some of them move very quickly. Despite the very best efforts of the controller involved, separation is not guaranteed.

There are commercial operators in the UK who fly to airports that either have no CAS around them, or opt to cross large expanses of "FIR" to get to their destination which does have CAS, often for "commercial reasons" (saving money / time). I sometimes wonder if they are aware of the risk they are running?

My concern is that fare paying pax have been / are exposed to increased risk, which is sometimes unneccessary as an adequate, if longer, route is often available.

I have no problem whatsoever with Mr. PPL wandering around "out there", or with the military "doing their thing" in Class G. They both (should) know what they are doing and the risks and responsibilities they have. All users of the "FIR" should take advantage of any and all ASCOCAs available from whatever unit, LARS or not. That's what I think the ATSIN was getting at.

That's my 2d's worth. Who's next?

Rgds BEX

[alphaalpha]

Thanks, Evil J, for your further comment. To clarify, I do not know much about the internal politics of NATS and other ATS service providers, but the user end of things (ie the service provided to pilots over the r/t) seems to have suffered little as a result of privatisation. My comments about Luton re-inforce this.

My comment about divisiveness was intended to support the difficulty you have highlighted. Sorry I didn't make myself clear.

Is the ATSIN in the public domain? I have done a web search, but not found any relevant reference. Can you point me at a web (or even physical paper!!) as I would quite like to read the document before commenting further.

Regards
AA

[Manu Forte]

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/ATS023.pdf

[DFC]

IMHO, this points the finger straight at policy at Scottish ACC.

At ScOACC, it is management policy that regardless of workload, the best service provided to flights in Class G airspace will be RIS.

Note "regardless of workload".

The current situation is that many flights across the North Sea below FL245 do not have the availability of controlled or advisory airspace. These flights can not get more than a RIS from scottish.

Yes, there will be times that workload limits service but this can not be deemed to exist H24.

Without doubt, the CAA are not happy with this and are clearly stating that pilots must get the best available service.

DFC

[1261]

As far as ATSOCAs at Scottish Centre are concerned, this is a typical management cover-your-arse excercise; after several incidents RAS was put into the too-difficult tray - much easier to do that than to address real problems with training, co-ordination and radar coverage.

[TC_LTN]

Just to try and explain the Luton scenario as I see it.

Prior to London Luton Airport Operations Ltd choosing to contract out it's Air Traffic Services, we decided that with a large increase in movements (easyJet) we could no longer justify dedicating a controller to the LARS task. A new, more conventional split in the Approach operation was adopted i.e. an Intermediate and Final (Director) controller. LARS continued to be provided as a Secondary task by the Int. controller but it quickly became apparent that the service provision was suffering. The revenue generated annually by providing LARS (about £70K and reducing) was obviously never going to be sufficient to allow a dedicated LARS controller to be provided again and therefore it was decided to withdraw from the LARS scheme.

Once that decision was made, we then had to embark on the quite difficult task of educating our customers that the service was no longer available. This could only really be achieved by declining ANY requests for an ATSORA except for those aircraft requesting Zone Transit. In order to achieve some consistency and to give a clear message to the local GA community, this was decreed in the form of an instruction from management. At about this time it was decided that it was necessary to amend our go-around procedures to 3000ft Alt and therefore also restricting the occasions when we where able to offer a zone transit via the overhead. The overall outcome of all this was that Luton gained a pretty awful and perhaps unjustified reputation which was subject to much discussion as AA alluded.

Post our transfer to NATS and the transfer of the Approach function to LTCC both the transferred ATCOs and all those brave souls who 'volunteered' to cross validate upon our arrival, have been free to choose, once again, when we are able and happy to accommodate an ATSORA request. The onus is now very much on the individual ATCO to decide whether his/her workload and capability dictate that he can provide a RIS/RAS and manage his/her primary task. NO PRESSURE FROM OUR MANGEMENT OR CAA AT THE MOMENT ;-)

Sorry to harp on about just one unit but I think it goes to prove that, left to their own devices, your average ATCO is very capable of making sensible and reasoned decisions about his/her own capabilities at any given time without the draconian intervention of NATS Management or the CAA in the form of an ATSIN.

[gremlyn]

ATSIN 23 is merely an attempt by the CAA remind us that through its airspace regulator (Directorate of Airspace Policy) pursuant to the relevant provisions of the Transport Act 2000, it is able to 'direct' that a specific level of ATC service be provided.

In practice however, when dealing with privatised and part-privatised ATC companies and organisations, this ability to 'direct' is utter nonesense and in reality, the CAA i.e. the Government, is (in so far as ATSOCAS is concerned) virtually impotent.

If any 'direction' emanating from the CAA placed an unreasonable financial burden on the ATC company or organisation concerned, it could challenge the CAA's ruling by seeking a judicial review of the ruling.

If this was refused or if it failed, there is then recourse to EU legislation and finally, to WTO rules.

As TC LTN says, left to the operational controllers, the 'best' service will be offered subject to workload.

However, until LARS is properly funded i.e. the cost of provision is fully recouped, the problems of flying IFR in the FIR will unfortunately remain, irrespective of CAA ATSINs, AICs, directives or memoranda.


:=

[alphaalpha]

TC_LTN:

Thanks for the info. The Luton ATSOCAS scenario over the last couple of years now makes sense. I'm also very glad that some level of service is again available, albeit informally.

There has been lots of discussion on PPRuNe and elsewhere about funding for LARS, so I'll not comment here.

Birmingam ATC:

There seems to have been a similar situation around the Birmingham CTA. There was a permanent notam about eighteen months ago which said in summary, 'if you are not landing at Birmingam we cannot provide a service.' Even though not a LARS unit, Birminham appeared to change from being frequently helpful to aircraft outside their CTA, to being helpful only fairly rarely. The notam no longer appears and I have found nothing equivalent in the Birmingham a/d section of the AIP (but I haven't looked through the AICs and SUPs). Are Birminham controllers now in a similar situation to that described by TC_LTN? I haven't flown near Birmingam recently, so I've no current experience. Any Birmingham ATCO able to comment?

Regards
AA.

[Evil J]

gremlyn and TC_LTN i COMPLETELY AGREE AND THAT WAS THE JIST OF MY ORIGINAL POINT.(Damn CAPS LOCK)-I will provide ATSOCAS as and when I can but I resent being TOLD by the CAA what is expected of me. I suspect that the ATSIN was made with good intention but as usual with the CAA executed badly!