.. and another thing ... you've got me on a roll now ...

Who are the Project Managers, Fact Finders, Industry Liason, Meeting gurus, Frequent Flyers, hospitality users etc?

Most are Controllers. You find me a non-technical project that's not managed and staffed by a fair swag of ageing/ex/has-been/medically unfit Controllers. That's where all the money goes ... on $100,000 a year project staff. Most job descriptions state "must have or have held an ATC license"... no matter you couldn't project manage a morning tea. I know, "you've never done it, so how could you understand what's required". There's university qualified project managers in Airservices that can't get a guernsey ... because they haven't held an ATC license. And there's plenty of controllers managing projects that have well and truly gone off the rails.

Maybe Airservices isn't as dumb as I think. maybe their ploy is to get rid of all these support jobs being done by Controllers ... then re-creating the jobs and staffing them with professionals. I'd like to see that ...

Don't stop now peuce. I agree with everything you are saying. They're paying controllers in the six figures to do jobs that they aren't trained or really entitled to do. Then AsA get a double whammy because they have to pay another controller to do that controller's job at the console.

Ask the line controllers about that, and you will hear - YES - and those controllers get included in our operational numbers! So next time you hear about how many 'controllers' there are have a think about what you just said.

Most line controllers would be glad to see a whole lot of the non-core projects (I god I sound like John Howard) scrapped and the controllers returned to the line - if they are still capable.

Conversely, there are areas where you do need an Air Traffic Controllers involvement - not neccessarily running the project - but certainly providing operational advice, even if on a short secondment. An ATC system designed by an engineer is not an operationally effective solution! You also need Air Traffic Controllers to do the training in such places as the college, or in the centres.

I wonder of the 900 air traffic controllers we supposedly employ, how many hold down a full time line on a roster? If I were to pluck a figure I would say between 500 and 600 - maybe somebody out there knows.

Does anyone know if AsA are factoring the use of blue suiters into the equation

Saw some RAAF officers in BN this week looking at where they will be sitting when they start doing DN APP later this year. I believe Pearce and TL will be next - Pearce in PH and TL either CS or BN is the rumour. AMB last to come across I think, to BN. Don't know about WLM, Nowra, Sale, Edinburgh, Oakey etc.

Zero net effect really, as there is added airspace with a few extra people added.

18 months: WLM/Nowra plus BIK/CNK into Sydney High Density Control Unit

The axe swing
 

Does the 300 swings include ATC's in ML Tower??
What's going on there this arvo, Sat 4/3. ?
Staff shortages everywhere, well done Aircircuses!
Thanks to the ATC's in the Tower who carried the can.:ok:

Thanks to Lodown's encouragement, I'll keep my head of steam going ...

Think about this ... support people drastically reduced ... a job/project/rectification/document/procedure etc needs doing urgently (its happened before) ... will have to take Controllers off line to do it ... will have to recruit more controllers to take up the slack .... back to where we started, or worse!

But the thing that really gets me, is that obviously the 300 jobs was some rocket scientist's arse pluck, because according to ASA press releases "we haven't identified the jobs to go yet". Surely good management dictates that you size the jobs and workload ... before making, what appears to be, an arbitary decision to axe x number of jobs.

This really smacks of a "we need to trim M$x off our budget over the next x number of years" type management technique.

Okay, I'm done. I'm retiring hurt ... from banging my head against an ASA brick wall ... should have known better . I think I'll just sit around and wait for the big recruitment drive in about 12 months time ...

Peuce - Welcome to my world - Want a Panadol?

Hot rumour is that the target is a 40% reduction in operating costs. This is only the start. The Australian article last week foreshadowed much more to come with Greg Russell stating that the front line was no affected "...at this stage." and that the controllers' union would be consulted. That consultation didn't extend to any other unions affected so what value should be put on his word?

I'd hazard a guess we're back in "Frank Baldwin" mode with the razor running hot and bloody until the board (of whom virtually all are "change managers") gets the pound of flesh they're looking for then a huge golden handshake for Russell before departing for greener pastures.

The pendulum has swung again...

Hmmmmm.....We're already short staffed. In BN Centre 85 controllers are eligible for retirement, BN Centre management are counting on losing about 15, with 12 new controllers (ab initios) expected to be trained in the centre in 2006 to keep up the numbers. You do the maths. And it's something similar in ML Centre.

There is no way that any controllers will be offered the door. We just don't have enough.

It takes 5 years for a person off the street to be trained to replace an experienced controller. In the next 5 years, AsA will be flat out maintaining current numbers without a degradation to the service provided to industry.

Pierre - maybe the 'problem' you stated is in fact the solution & strategy all rolled in to one.

Every other industry is offering less and charging more - it's how tthe very few in higher management make obscene bonuses - and that is what the business world is all about isn't it?

Have a look at the strategy the FAA are using - they are currently 600 controllers short, everyone is working overtime and incident rates are escalating - the FAA answer? Blame the controllers publically for the rise in separation incidents, and at the same time fire a few more to piss them off even further - and then insist the FAA needs to reduce costs and the controllers should consider getting paid less. It is a total Blitzkreig of Chutzpah! [Read Here

There are still a few morons lurking in these cyber halls who think we should be adopting the FAA 'best practice' in Australia.

Shake your head in wonder at the antics of the FAA and the GOP..... http://themainbang.typepad.com/blog/

Don't wish too hard for it - you might just get it.

Perhaps a CEO who is a political animal - joins an organisation, cuts staff to the bone to reduce the $$$ and make himself look good, then moves on to something else before things come crumbling down.

Perhaps Bernie and Andrew weren't all that bad, guys & gals?

I've heard that morale in ASA is hitting rock bottom in some areas, with little or no support to affected staff, some told they have a future, then days later told the opposite. This is dangerous territory - recall the tragedies after the Ansett collapse and some people were pushed over the emotional cliff.

ST,

The word is that staff cuts to ATCC (for outsiders, that's our internal training section for ATCs) are going to take place soon. I've heard that they're going to cut staff by 10%.

How? voice recognition technology and a better simulator. Hmmmmm.....hope they not going to use the one Telstra uses.

Not enough ATCs, cut the training section staff. Get rid of all those people on projects. Restructure ATC from a 2 centre approach to a East Coast management, High level Airspace and Regional management. It all sounds very "Frank Baldwin" doesn't it.

BTW what happened to Frank? did he go back to NZ?

Take the redundancy, start a company and get hired back as a consultant at three times the money with all the tax write-offs that you couldn't get on a wage.

Management Types!
 

****su, Pierre and friends. Does the term "Seagull Manager " mean anything to you?:yuk:

The only seagull I heard of was a pilot - one had to throw rocks at him to get him to fly.

I've heard that the TGOs have been told the writing is on the wall and that they should consider VRs. ASA is planning to replace them with a training system that utilized voice recognition, developed in-house, and that the system would be sold to the world.

Would this be the same voice-rec system the very same TGOs are being asked to help develop? Tee hee. :rolleyes:

I borrowed one of ****su's panadols, so I am coming back for another beating.

Sure, you can create voice recognition software that will mechanically read a script and answer straight forward questions .... but how does this machine make judgements, errors, decisions (correct and incorrect), less than perfect approaches, get itself lost, deal with ATC questions during an IFER, interact with other aircraft after receiveing traffic information, climb too fast, climb too slow, etc etc?

If Airservices can make this artifically intelligent machine in house ... it deserves the Noble Prize for Science.

If it stuffs it up (what's the odds?) it has just stuffed up its ATC training forever!