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Why Air Traffic Controllers are exploited by ASA

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Old 29th Jan 2009, 02:45
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Why Air Traffic Controllers are exploited by ASA

I know this is going to be a provocative post but I believe it must be said. Many postings on this site show what appears to be a total breakdown between the air traffic controller workforce at Airservices, and the management at that organisation. I believe I have an explanation for one part of it.

Look back to NAS 2b, where the Aviation Reform Group – which included the Chairmen of Airservices and CASA, and the then Chief of the Air Force (now Chief of Defence) – made a decision to move to the North American NAS airspace system. The NAS is quite definite. If Class C terminal airspace is to be provided, an approach radar facility must be included – with adequate staffing levels, proper training, and the hardware for both secondary surveillance and primary radar.

When Airservices made the decision to reverse the Class E airspace above Class D and make it Class C, it was obvious that they would also have to cover the cost of employing extra air traffic controllers, the proper approach radar rating, and the equipment.

It was considered at the time that they might try to cut corners, so the Minister gave a directive on 31 August 2004 requiring Airservices to provide the radar equipment if they were to operate Class C above D.

I, JOHN DUNCAN ANDERSON, Minister for Transport and Regional Services, pursuant to s.16 of the Airservices Act 1995, give the following direction to AA.
If:
(a) On the date on which this direction commences, a volume of airspace above Class D airspace above an airport was classified as Class E airspace, and
(b) After the commencement of this direction, AA re-classifies that volume of airspace to Class C airspace, AA must, in performing its function under s.8 of the Airservices Act 1995 of providing facilities and services, provide an operating ATC control tower at the airport and an approach radar control service at the earliest time one can be supplied and installed.
Amazingly enough, a small number of controllers (including Scurvy.D.Dog) caused an outcry – saying they could operate the Class C airspace without the extra staffing, without the extra training, and without the approach radar unit.

Can you believe this? It is almost as if these controllers thought they were some part of a charitable institution where they should offer to have more liability and provide Class C airspace without adequate manning and without proper tools.

The Airservices management jumped at the offer. If a boss believes his staff can be willingly exploited, the boss will normally comply by doing the exploitation.

The main claim by this small number of controllers was that they could provide Class C airspace for the same cost as Class E. Airservices immediately re-did a safety case showing this, and naturally the Class C (without any extra training and without the radar provision) won!

We now have Airservices controllers operating Class C airspace without radar, quite often with one sole controller, and with Class C airspace larger than the terminal airspace at O’Hare Airport in Chicago.

By running the campaign to reverse NAS and take on extra responsibility (when it was obvious that there was no more income to pay for additional controllers), Airservices saw that they could exploit – as stated above.

The airlines were delighted. Can you imagine if the pilots went to the airlines at the time it was decided that there should be a two pilot crew for 10 to 30 passenger planes, and said, “Boss, we don’t need two pilots, we can do it with one pilot!”

We now have a situation where in a place like Albury, a single controller in many cases is not only responsible for the traffic in the circuit area, but also for separating VFR from IFR traffic up to 45 miles away without Radar.

The Minister’s directive to provide a proper approach radar still remains, however I understand it is the controllers who have supported Airservices not going ahead with this.

What should happen is that the airspace should be Class E, and it should be made quite clear to the airlines that if they want controllers responsible for Class C airspace, they will have to pay the extra for manning, training and radar.

Once the Airservices management and airlines could see that controllers were prepared to take on a higher workload, and far higher personal risk of litigation of an error is made, they obviously decided that they could exploit the controllers in every way possible.

Could there be any other explanation?
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 03:15
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Dick, Can you please explain the how there is a complete breakdown between the Controllers and management if we are apparently in agreement over the airspace issue you are talking about?
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 03:18
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I can't see the logic, but by all means have a go yourself. No doubt the reason is somewhere within, where only subscribers can go.
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 03:19
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Here we go again!
.
The explanations have been put to industry, by the profession (not just individuals), here and in officialdom, the reasoning, the realities and the outcomes from the historical and nostagic AusNAS2b experiment are a matter of public record.
.
But away you go though ...
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 03:21
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Starts maybe the breakdown happened after that?

That is AsA management saw that controllers were prepared to take on far greater responsibility than that required by Government policy- so they decided to exploit that situation.

Capcom, NAS2b was hardly experimental. Class E over D is proven in North America. US and Canadian controllers will not do Class C unless proper staffing, training and Radar is provided.

Last edited by Dick Smith; 29th Jan 2009 at 06:55.
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 05:46
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Dick, I don't think thats the whole story. Maybe your onto something, I dunno

I have seen the video of the maroochy- vb close encounter, have you? should find it some how, then you might understand why atc's didn't like the procedures. Our friends/family/mail/cat/dogs/etc etc fly on planes, just remember that. We aren't a pack of idiots

We don't really care what the procedures are, we don't care if you change them, as long as they are safe, as long as we don't have to watch two planes come too close, and as long as you give us the training and resources to do it.

The problem is this; ASA is for profit.
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 05:55
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The title of this thread lead me to believe this post was going to be about how the constant reliance on overtime and the removal of 100 odd ATCs into management positions, and the complete lack of respect shown to ATC by management has lead to our current staffing situation.

Instead, we've got a history lesson.

Dick, not working that particular airspace, I can only suppose that my colleagues' own sense of pride and professionalism lead them to making the situation/airspace work - much like we try to make all the projects foisted upon us work.

That is how AsA really exploits us = by relying on our professionalism.

Example: AsA slandered every single ATC in the press for months on end by inferring that renegade ATCs were running an illegal "sick-out" - expecting that either we:
A) would just keep doing our jobs (while they influence public opinion against us),
.
or,
.
B) turn into renegades for real and give them someone to pin the problems on -

Either outcome a win-win situation for AsA.

Last edited by undervaluedATC; 29th Jan 2009 at 08:47.
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 07:01
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1. As others have said before - there was no specific safety case permitted for
Australia for NAS. The safety risk was never specifically proven.
2. Just because the Septics do it doesn't mean it is best practice. Why the
obsession with this? American best practice is often an oxymoron.
Australia probably had best practice using in and out of CTA,
OPS control and Flight Service. But we wouldn't know without analysis.
Otherwise is like saying the Mormon (choose your own) faith is the best religion
in the world.
3. At the time of the commencement of the Australian Airspace and
Procedures chaos - FAA Inspectors were saying (to me, whilst in the States)
DO NOT GO TO ALPHABET AIRSPACE PROCEDURES.
4. The consequence is that we changed the whole system based upon OPINION
using illegitimate power and influence.
5. Hazard a guess at the cost and confusion that the continuous flip-flopping
of airspace and procedures rules has cost Australia.
6. There were more close encounters than we wish to know about,
that were reportable one day and not the next!
7. NAS has zero to do with the relationship between Airservies' management and ATC. The relationship has always been bad - today it is particularly bad. No one
who can change this will admit that commercialised ATC, in Australia, has failed.
8. This thread wreeks of hidden aganda.
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 08:53
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BMW, OK Don't go with ICAO Classifications that are allocated according to different traffic densities- just have controlled and uncontrolled airspace (ie all or nothing) as we did in the sixties and before.

Fortunately there are new young pilots and controllers coming along who have a different view.

No hidden agenda- if there was I would not post under my own name!

And the safety risk was as proven as the safety risk of a 747,-using the same methodology.
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 09:29
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I'm afriad the breakdowns with management and morale problems are far more reaching than just with ATC's. Technicians/Engineers are also in the same boat and CA "negotiations" have gone just as poorly.
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 09:52
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Dick, I'm certainly not a young Air Traffic Controller and I'm quite happy to provide any ICAO Class service, with one exception as you and I have discussed in detail before... Class E cannot be provided in airspace where a FLOW control service is being provided.

Why? You may well have understood that if you had seen, during the NAS2b trial, the consequences to the inbound sequence of aircraft arriving at a Capital City airport of an A330 diverting around one of your VFR friends transiting in front of the A330 in Class E airspace, as he/she is quite entitled to do... it was absolute mayhem and a good half-an-hour of combined effort by a number of controllers in achieving the spacing required for landing between all of the arriving aircraft in that sequence instantly become a complete waste of time and effort.

But you didn't see it and somehow you don't see a problem with it.

Ahh, I remember now, you felt sorry for me because I hadn't received the correct training. But hang on a minute... it was the crew of the A330 that demanded clearance to divert around the unidentified VFR aircraft crossing in front of it. I'm not sure how the correct training for me would have prevented the A330 crew from diverting around the aircraft on a collision course?

Perhaps you could explain to the crew of the A330 and to myself how IFR aircraft in Class E airspace subject to FLOW Control sequencing can avoid VFR aircraft on a collision course without compromising the integrity of the sequence of arriving aircraft and without altering their vertical descent profile to ensure that the VNAV requirements on the STAR are complied with...?
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 10:11
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Quoka

you say

. Class E cannot be provided in airspace where a FLOW control service is being provided.


This is simply not true. The US do it daily! Are you suggesting that the US cannot provide ATC services in class E simply because some aircraft are subject to flow control?

Having flown into Chicago and other busy US airports which are often subject to flow control, the class E from FL180 down to A080 never proved to be a problem even when we were under flow control.

Perhaps instead of looking to Australia for a solution, why not look to those that have done all this before? The US.
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 10:35
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Why Air Traffic Controllers are exploited by ASA
Dick, I'm not sure how NAS has anything to do with it. In my opinion Air Traffic Controllers are exploited by ASA because ASA management, which is mostly filled at the lower levels by high school educated ex-controllers who realise that they wouldn't be qualified to hold equivalent positions at any other business in Australia and who were keen to get away from the console before CASA took them away, believe that the 90's era Bush/Howard, profit-driven, hard-line, confrontational management style is still "worlds best practice".

Despite all the rhetoric from the AWB about the primacy of safety, in actuality it is "affordable safety", a phrase you know quite well. The problem with that phrase is that the definition of "affordable" is subjective, and one could argue that what is now being considered "affordable" might not necessarily be considered "safe".

The bottom line at the AWB is the $, and in the quest to make the 60% net profit dividend as big as possible each year ATC's are viewed with an accountants eye as a liability, not an asset.

Future staff plans revolve around "efficiencies" that haven't been tried or proven and are not used anywhere in the world. This is where we are going (we are half way there already), and its all a gamble based on an idea a manager was able to convince the board was The Way Forward, with associated financial benefits. Staff plans for The Way Forward include a 5 year model, as that is the expected life expectancy of the controller with ASA. This term tallies well with the average ALM/lvl3's operational experience so I can see where it was plucked from.

As the ATC of the (near) future is simply going to "monitor the machine", they wont need experience or refresher training or career development..in fact any money spent on Air Traffic Controllers is money off the Bottom Line.

This mantra comes from the top down with the added incentive of executive bonuses to ensure a compliant lower management.

Yes, mean and lean and corner cutting is still a part of the corporate world, but is it appropriate for an organisation that was created to save lives? The professional ATC's, who have made a career out of separating traffic, and are the ones you want on the end of the radio when the proverbial hits the fan, have their doubts. This is why the ATC "profession" is in their sights, and also "why Air Traffic Controllers are exploited by ASA"....
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 10:38
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The main claim by this small number of controllers was that they could provide Class C airspace for the same cost as Class E. Airservices immediately re-did a safety case showing this, and naturally the Class C (without any extra training and without the radar provision) won!
Most readers appreciate that:-
.
1. The RADAR C directive was not consistent with ICAO insofar as ICAO do not require RADAR in C
2. The RADAR C directive was not driven by any identified safety data, or agency study supporting such a requirement
3. Non-radar C has been operating successfully and safely here and O/S for many years
4. The Radar C directive was seen by many at the time to cost load (skew) any CBA to make radar C regional terminals prohibitively expensive, and that by doing so would be forcing a class E CBA result
.
Some might suggest that you as a high profile advocate for AusNAS and Class E would have been very happy with that outcome given E could not win the efficiency or safety day over C unless C was made to be prohibitively expensive!!
.
The ridiculous thing about it is that the same RADAR requirement was not put on E terminals where the reality is that surveillance is more important given the VFR component is not talking to ATC or other pilots like they are in D or C …. Now that IS hypocrisy!
.
As for your claim that controllers take on “far greater responsibility” with C than E, well I’m sorry mate that does not stack up either. C is far easier to manage than the VFR shooting gallery of E …. But you know that too …. If E was safe, efficient and ‘overall’ better than the C it replaced, it would still be in place! … AsA are not exploiting the airspace classification system or C terminal controllers in this regard.
.
I guess in response folks could ask, did you as the Chair of the then CAA exploit ATC when you dumped OCTA services on them? .... and your views on Benalla ... you want ATC's to protect you OCTA …. Who is attempting to exploit who???

Perhaps you might enlighten us with just one location in the US where ICAO E rules are used above a D tower .. not multi-overlayed classifications that amount to a hybrid surveillance based D … no …. just one example of proper ICAO E ... and without RADAR
.
Ta
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Old 29th Jan 2009, 11:08
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Having flown into Chicago and other busy US airports which are often subject to flow control, the class E from FL180 down to A080 never proved to be a problem even when we were under flow control.
Good thing you do not operate into Reno then eh!

Pictures and Video: Glider collides with Hawker 800XP on approach to Reno airport, forcing emergency gear-up landing-01/09/2006-London-Flightglobal.com

ASN Aircraft accident Raytheon Hawker 800XP N879QS Carson City, NV
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Old 30th Jan 2009, 01:13
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Capcom

Do you really think that a mid air collision cannot happen in our own class G airspace surrounding regional airports?

You say

The RADAR C directive was not consistent with ICAO insofar as ICAO do not require RADAR in C
So what? neither does class A. Australia like many countries have differences to ICAO.

The RADAR C directive was not driven by any identified safety data, or agency study supporting such a requirement
None was required. Non radar class C was not part of the approved NAS design. Yet Neocon type resistance to NAS allowed AsA to implement the most laughable design imaginable. Non radar Class C over places like Alice Springs.

Can you tell me what black magic a controller is supposed to use for separation or traffic info for a VFR aircraft flying VFR On Top over a place like YMLT or YBAS? No DME and no VOR?

The ridiculous thing about it is that the same RADAR requirement was not put on E terminals where the reality is that surveillance is more important given the VFR component is not talking to ATC or other pilots like they are in D or C …. Now that IS hypocrisy
It seem then that you support turning the radar covered class G at places like Ballina into class E, the radar covered class G in Launceston into class E and Canberra into class E at night?

.... and your views on Benalla ... you want ATC's to protect you OCTA …. Who is attempting to exploit who???
You know full well that the NAS design included upgrading radar covered areas like Benalla from OCTA to CLASS E.

Perhaps you might enlighten us with just one location in the US where ICAO E rules are used above a D tower .. not multi-overlayed classifications that amount to a hybrid surveillance based D … no …. just one example of proper ICAO E ... and without RADAR
ICAO has very little to do with anything in this debate. We do not have to use strict ICAO guidelines. The US has plenty of non radar class E airspace above class D towers. Here are just a few that you might want to check out.

Gillett Wyoming
Jackson Hole Wyoming
Juneau Alaska
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Old 30th Jan 2009, 01:43
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Crap thread

If you lot want to discuss Nas, ICAO classes of airspace etc, go start another thread.

As for exploitation, how about Asa recruiting people from OS, telling them they will be a ML TMA controller on (former) FPC wages (21 yr career as TWR/TMA).
Poor bastard moves family from other side of planet, rocks up first day and is told,

"Sorry mate, you are now going to be an en-route controller and because you haven't done it before, you have to do our full en-route course in 20 weeks and we will now pay you $27 pa, as your an ab-initio student".

What can you do when you and family have re-located half way around the world. Blogs gets through course and told that they are going to group "A" three weeks prior to course completion. Starts learning group "A" theory and moved during Taaats course to new group "B".

Said person gets the ****s with the lies etc and leaves. This is not my own experience but there are many more examples of similar experiences out there.

Exploitation at its best.
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Old 30th Jan 2009, 01:49
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Likewise the bloke from Pommie land with the job at Essendon tower a few years back, dicked him around so he went back!
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Old 30th Jan 2009, 02:14
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MJBowhiley
.
I rest my case ....... ......
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Old 30th Jan 2009, 03:20
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Capcom, what a classic justification of “That is what we used to do in the past and it may never be changed.”

Try telling an American or Canadian controller that Class C without radar is “far easier to manage than the VFR shooting gallery of E.” They would simply laugh at you and query your experience level.

I didn’t exploit ATC by handing them the responsibility for the old Flight Service airspace. My plan (and I’m sure you know it) was that the Class G airspace would be upgraded to Class E – as per the USA. Look at this diagram.



No one would be exploited - if more controllers were necessary to operate Class E, then they must be provided.

You ask me about one location in the US where ICAO Class E rules are used above a Class D tower. There are over 350 Class D towers in the USA – all with Class E above. Over 50% of these towers do not have radar coverage in the airspace immediately above the Class D.

An example of a Class D tower is Williamsport airport, approximately 130 miles to the west of Washington DC, in some of the most densely trafficked airspace in the world. There is no radar coverage in the Class E airspace immediately above the Class D tower, and the controllers love the airspace design as it makes it clear who is responsible for what.

Capcom, it is pathetic to use one accident as an example of why airspace design should not be scientifically allocated.

In relation to Benalla, I don’t want ATCs to protect you OCTA, I want the airspace to be upgraded to Class E – which when IMC exists is identical to Class A.
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