Incident at CLK
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Incident at CLK
Our collegue had an incident last week. 2 aircraft on same runway and not at all enough room. No good la! she was suspended immediately and her approach training terminated too. Management are so busy punnishing her that they forget she had no annual leave for 2 years. Like most of us she suffers from fatigue and needs a break. Off course she is very tired! When our annual leave balance overflows it just gets converted to TOIL – sorry it is a swear word now so they call it WHB instead. Just same s
t with a new name! 261 hours of overtime and lost vacation on her balance (WLB) plus her annual leave balance also overflowing!!!
That is 2 months “owed to her” by CAD in TOIL only................HAHA, Guess what? she will never get it back!!!!!!! Our lovelly management may decide to give us one or two days of TOIL with short notice when it suits them, what what does that help? We all need a vacation and a real break Like many of us she cannot get leave and only the gweilos can get it – so lucky they are!
Some colleges wrote to management complaining about lack of leave and other stuff. Off course their response was a lot of hot aire like: “you can rest assured we're very concerned and will work hard to improve the staffing situation and blablablabla”.............zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
Theyre just 2 stubborn to admit WE'RE NOT ENOUGH CONTROLLERS IN HKATC AND MISTAKES WILL HAPPEN BECAUSE WE ARE 2 TIRED AND ALWAYS WORKING!!!! GIVE US A REAL VACATION NOW!
t with a new name! 261 hours of overtime and lost vacation on her balance (WLB) plus her annual leave balance also overflowing!!! That is 2 months “owed to her” by CAD in TOIL only................HAHA, Guess what? she will never get it back!!!!!!! Our lovelly management may decide to give us one or two days of TOIL with short notice when it suits them, what what does that help? We all need a vacation and a real break Like many of us she cannot get leave and only the gweilos can get it – so lucky they are! Some colleges wrote to management complaining about lack of leave and other stuff. Off course their response was a lot of hot aire like: “you can rest assured we're very concerned and will work hard to improve the staffing situation and blablablabla”.............zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
Theyre just 2 stubborn to admit WE'RE NOT ENOUGH CONTROLLERS IN HKATC AND MISTAKES WILL HAPPEN BECAUSE WE ARE 2 TIRED AND ALWAYS WORKING!!!! GIVE US A REAL VACATION NOW!
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lazygal 
a tower-rated controller......you have two options: continue enjoying your 1.5 hours early go or resign to take a vacation as long as you like. don't build your agenda on someone's difficult time. BTW, your signature is scribbled in the OFFICIAL SECRET ORDINANCE.
a tower-rated controller......you have two options: continue enjoying your 1.5 hours early go or resign to take a vacation as long as you like. don't build your agenda on someone's difficult time. BTW, your signature is scribbled in the OFFICIAL SECRET ORDINANCE.
[quote][your signature is scribbled in the OFFICIAL SECRET ORDINANCE/QUOTE]
Standard BS response from the 4th floor. Obviously you've been up to Beijing for the annual brainwashing exercise.
I don't think it will be too long before everyone's TOIL balance becomes a secret. It'll get sent to you the same as your payslip soon, so nobody will know the extent of the problem. Can't have low morale undermining our efforts to keep the bastards down, can we.
Too easy to quickly add up the figures on the notice board and realize that ATCOs and ATFSOs are now owed around 18,000 hours collectively.
That is about 10 man-years of unpaid work- something the Government of the HK SAR should be ashamed of.
Will keep you posted on how long it takes for the TOIL figures to be removed from the Ops room.
Standard BS response from the 4th floor. Obviously you've been up to Beijing for the annual brainwashing exercise.
I don't think it will be too long before everyone's TOIL balance becomes a secret. It'll get sent to you the same as your payslip soon, so nobody will know the extent of the problem. Can't have low morale undermining our efforts to keep the bastards down, can we.
Too easy to quickly add up the figures on the notice board and realize that ATCOs and ATFSOs are now owed around 18,000 hours collectively.
That is about 10 man-years of unpaid work- something the Government of the HK SAR should be ashamed of.
Will keep you posted on how long it takes for the TOIL figures to be removed from the Ops room.
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I'm no big fan of the management, but don't always blame them for something they have nothing to do with. I'm not "granted" for leaves quite often, and I'm especially pissed off when I learn that we're short of staff because they send some of us to take some mickey mouse course. But hey, that's the end of the story, and everybody knows about this problem. If anyone finds him/herself so tired to a point that would jeopardise safety, he/she should and has the right not to work. When one comes to work, it signifies that he/she is physically and mentally fit to work, and he/she has to be responsible for every single instruction and decision made during the shift. Should you have a deal, blame yourself, not Ms. Chiu! However, considering the fact that all these people are "Hkg civil servants", this way of thinking won't surprise me, i.e. whenever a problem arises, it must be someone else' fault.
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Get real......
Lets face it people, it is easy to say "if you are too tired to work then call in sick" but it should not have to be up to the individual to ascertain that they are TOO TIRED to work. The culture in Hong Kong does not lend itself to taking time off because you have been working too hard. Unless you are a "dead man walking" you are expected to turn up for work - how many people do you see sitting at the console coughing and sneezing with a lousy head cold when they should be resting at home?
I know of 2 separate occasions where a controller working in Hong Kong called in sick after particularly nasty bouts of insomnia resulted in less than 2 hours of poor sleep prior to a morning shift - on both occasions the controller concerned (a Gweilo no less) was called down to the 4th floor on his return to work and asked for an explanation????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??
The inference taken from the interview was very definitely that "lack of sleep" was not sufficient reason to "take the day off."
The reason that organisations that have anything to do with aviation legislate break and rest periods is because individuals do not necessarily know when they are TOO TIRED. The whole idea of having enforced breaks during shifts and minimum time off between shifts is to ensure that staff do not get TOO TIRED. If these breaks are not enforced either by management, by staff themselves or by staff unions then the only obvious result will be REDUCED PERFORMANCE.
The minimum breaks that are recommended have been decided by experts who have spent years studying the problems associated with controller fatigue and any organisation that decides to reduce these rest periods leaves themselves wide open to legal action in the event of an incident. The sad thing is that the controllers involved also leave themselves open to legal action.
I remember a study that was carried out 4 or 5 years ago relating to controller fatigue - one part of the report stated that driving a car whilst fatigued was in fact more dangerous than driving whilst intoxicated - and who would want/allow a controller to work after a few wigs of vodka ???? (The exception being those few individuals who need it to function at all)
The situation in HK is such that, despite increased numbers of complaints from controllers and a soaring backlog of owed vacation time and TOIL, nothing is going to be done until there is a major incident or, God forbid, accident which can be directly linked to controller fatigue.
Maybe it is time for more than just lazygal to stand up and be counted. Remember, it could be you who is taken down when the colleague next to you screws up because he/she is too tired to function to the best of their ability.
I know of 2 separate occasions where a controller working in Hong Kong called in sick after particularly nasty bouts of insomnia resulted in less than 2 hours of poor sleep prior to a morning shift - on both occasions the controller concerned (a Gweilo no less) was called down to the 4th floor on his return to work and asked for an explanation????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??
The inference taken from the interview was very definitely that "lack of sleep" was not sufficient reason to "take the day off."
The reason that organisations that have anything to do with aviation legislate break and rest periods is because individuals do not necessarily know when they are TOO TIRED. The whole idea of having enforced breaks during shifts and minimum time off between shifts is to ensure that staff do not get TOO TIRED. If these breaks are not enforced either by management, by staff themselves or by staff unions then the only obvious result will be REDUCED PERFORMANCE.
The minimum breaks that are recommended have been decided by experts who have spent years studying the problems associated with controller fatigue and any organisation that decides to reduce these rest periods leaves themselves wide open to legal action in the event of an incident. The sad thing is that the controllers involved also leave themselves open to legal action.
I remember a study that was carried out 4 or 5 years ago relating to controller fatigue - one part of the report stated that driving a car whilst fatigued was in fact more dangerous than driving whilst intoxicated - and who would want/allow a controller to work after a few wigs of vodka ???? (The exception being those few individuals who need it to function at all)
The situation in HK is such that, despite increased numbers of complaints from controllers and a soaring backlog of owed vacation time and TOIL, nothing is going to be done until there is a major incident or, God forbid, accident which can be directly linked to controller fatigue.
Maybe it is time for more than just lazygal to stand up and be counted. Remember, it could be you who is taken down when the colleague next to you screws up because he/she is too tired to function to the best of their ability.
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Don
I won't do that too. Here is another one:
DON123, YOU ARE NUMBER 13 IN THE SEQUENCE, TAXI TO HOLDING POINT 25L VIA BRAVO9 BRAVO7,BRAVO, WHISKY1, WHISKY2, HOTEL, HOTEL7, HOTEL9, JULIET, EXPECT SHORT DELAY.
I won't do that too. Here is another one:
DON123, YOU ARE NUMBER 13 IN THE SEQUENCE, TAXI TO HOLDING POINT 25L VIA BRAVO9 BRAVO7,BRAVO, WHISKY1, WHISKY2, HOTEL, HOTEL7, HOTEL9, JULIET, EXPECT SHORT DELAY.
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Don, I won't do it either, at least definitely not this way! And we are talking about an incident occurred about a week ago, a tower controller tried to squeeze one more departure before a landing freighter, but turned out to be a loss of separation (witness claimed there was only 1/2 of runway length between those 2 planes). FYI, we need a runway length between an arrival and a departure, i.e. by the time an arrival reaches the threshold, the departure has to be beyond the runway end. However, in daytime (with other criteria fulfilled), we can reduce that to about 3/4.
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Don,
Current NATS policy is to cut out conditional clearances whenever possible.They have been shown to be a significant factor in runway incursions.Having done the Tower job at CLK,there is no reason for any conditional clearances on any of the Tower positions.
Current NATS policy is to cut out conditional clearances whenever possible.They have been shown to be a significant factor in runway incursions.Having done the Tower job at CLK,there is no reason for any conditional clearances on any of the Tower positions.
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a tower-rated controller......you have two options: continue enjoying your 1.5 hours early go or resign to take a vacation as long as you like. don't build your agenda on someone's difficult time. BTW, your signature is scribbled in the OFFICIAL SECRET ORDINANCE.
. Jealous?
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The question is: who should be blamed if there was a major incident and the controller(s) involved had not been given leave for almost 2 years?
An ATCO should naturally call in sick whenever she/he suffers from fatigue, but can management escape blame if they have turned down an ATCOs request for leave again and again - and she/he eventually screws up? One must bear in mind that sickness is frowned upon here and many tend not to call in sick when they actually should.
How much HKATC management and CSB care about the staffing problems became painfully evident earlier this year when a radar controller re-applied for her job after having had 2 babies. She was offered very poor conditions and SATCO salary! Guess what! She rejected the job-"offer", which was more of an insult, really! She would have her rating back in no time. What a waste - considering the disastrous controller shortage!
An ATCO should naturally call in sick whenever she/he suffers from fatigue, but can management escape blame if they have turned down an ATCOs request for leave again and again - and she/he eventually screws up? One must bear in mind that sickness is frowned upon here and many tend not to call in sick when they actually should.
How much HKATC management and CSB care about the staffing problems became painfully evident earlier this year when a radar controller re-applied for her job after having had 2 babies. She was offered very poor conditions and SATCO salary! Guess what! She rejected the job-"offer", which was more of an insult, really! She would have her rating back in no time. What a waste - considering the disastrous controller shortage!
Last edited by RRSM; 15th Jul 2008 at 11:09.
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What is with this Official Secrets nonsense - somewhat telling that management would rather nobody say anything about incidents, work conditions, etc than deal with the problems in a transparent way. Openness and Transparency go hand in hand with Safety. Hard not to be insulting.
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RRSM: I don't want to make it generalized, but really, the management has simply no idea of what's going on at the frontline, they are still thinking in the kai tak era, where we were only having 1/2 of the present movements. They should keep up with our traffic pace at the first place, let alone learning to look at the big picture (provided that they have the enough vision and/or wisdom). After all, we're the ones whol handle the traffic, if something bad (something much worse than this incident) happens, it's us who suffer. I don't think they would really care about our situation. Oh, you said CSB, do they know what is ATC? In my opinion, they are just a bunch of (much much worse than our mediocre management).
(much much worse than our mediocre management).
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Especially for Ah Wai
The Tower Controllers leave their work for home two hours earlier than their official sign off time, this early-go is not registered. These people now claim the Management for TOIL. Two hours each day 20 days a month then each month each tower controller shall be deducted 40 hours from their base figure. As time goes by these TOIL argument is not a problem anymore. 18,000 hours??!! NO PROBLEM!
If tower controllers persist the pursuit, they should file a lawsuit to CAD, Let the judge to write off the TOIL and the early-go !
The Tower Controllers leave their work for home two hours earlier than their official sign off time, this early-go is not registered. These people now claim the Management for TOIL. Two hours each day 20 days a month then each month each tower controller shall be deducted 40 hours from their base figure. As time goes by these TOIL argument is not a problem anymore. 18,000 hours??!! NO PROBLEM!
If tower controllers persist the pursuit, they should file a lawsuit to CAD, Let the judge to write off the TOIL and the early-go !
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Handover
i am not interested to some gossips here but people here seem to me having the answers. i have a question-
while i am awaiting the last few passengers this morning at around 8.55, i heard the deliverry told a CX pilot like this `CXxxx STANDBY HANDOVER IS IN PROGRESS'. what does it means? i did not hear any announcement of HANDOVER completed. is this a normal practice in hk?
thanks for your generous reply.
while i am awaiting the last few passengers this morning at around 8.55, i heard the deliverry told a CX pilot like this `CXxxx STANDBY HANDOVER IS IN PROGRESS'. what does it means? i did not hear any announcement of HANDOVER completed. is this a normal practice in hk?
thanks for your generous reply.