Gold Coast International Airport CTAF
Yeah you are right I went off on a tangent there regarding general insurance, not liability insurance. I always assumed the convention required proof of gross negligence to move past the liability limits.
Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: Australia
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Yesterday (a Friday) at 5 pm peak hour Gold Coast Airport was a CTAF. When i came in, there were a number of Virgin/Jetstar/Qantas flights mixing it up with other aircraft types. When i joined final I was number 4 on final with two Virgin's waiting at the holding point. all trying to sort themselves out on CTAF. Apparently like that again today.. It was due to controllers being on sick/covid leave.
Covid/Sick leave would have pushed it over the edge... but the entire system is at breaking point all over Australia. ASA is denying its even a problem if you read the news. I doubt you'd find a single controller in Australia that doesn't think staffing is at or beyond a critical level. Its been steadily getting worse for years... covid should have been the perfect time to update sim courses and train up staff we need. Instead we closed airspace to save on overtime. Gave 150 controllers a redundancy package... and now 2 years later the only thing keeping it going is overtime. Some are over 350 hours. Its going to get a lot worse before it gets better. It will take a major aviation disaster before policies are changed.
ATC system has been based on the use of OT, based on staff being prepared to give their days off to earn extra $$. I recently heard that an ATC grossed > $24,000 is a single fortnight.
Yesterday (a Friday) at 5 pm peak hour Gold Coast Airport was a CTAF. When i came in, there were a number of Virgin/Jetstar/Qantas flights mixing it up with other aircraft types. When i joined final I was number 4 on final with two Virgin's waiting at the holding point. all trying to sort themselves out on CTAF. Apparently like that again today.. It was due to controllers being on sick/covid leave.
First up, I find the controllers (GC Tower and Bris approach) excellent and i understand it is an Air Services issue, not a Gold Coast Airport issue. But the "safety" irony of the situation is something else. Gold Coast Airport Authority has taken the petty "safety" bureaucracy to the next level. To even visit the office, visitors now need to QR scan in, enter a s...t tonne of details so you can acknowledge you have read and understood the safety plan. (ie...see that big door to your left marked Emergency Exit/) before you can even speak to someone. And don't dare make a remark about it to the receptionist because she seems to have the "Don't make me call security" look always at hand. To access the gate that goes to the private hangars that are literally 25 meters away, you need an ADA card (renewed every 2 yrs), and and a AUA card (2 yrs) in addition to your ASIC. Pretyt much doubling up everything. The security has lately been pinging cars that have not put a yellow flashing light on top to drive those 25 metres....or maybe 150 metres to the far hangars.
Yet at the same time as the serious issue of no flashing light on top of your car is being enforced (because the car itself is obviously invisible) we have 737's/A330's separating themselves from each other and all sort of other traffic. When i came it all ran pretty smoothly with about 10 aircraft on the CTAF freq, but still it is not ideal. Maybe Australia in general needs a few less bureaucrats making everyone's life difficult in the name of "safety", and and a few more people actually on the tools, whatever the profession. The safety bureaucracy just seems to accumulate, the number of steps required to get anything done are added for "safety", and then never removed. And they all take it so seriously, as if there will be a terrorists attack if you have a twinkle in your eye as they take your ID photos. Rant done.
First up, I find the controllers (GC Tower and Bris approach) excellent and i understand it is an Air Services issue, not a Gold Coast Airport issue. But the "safety" irony of the situation is something else. Gold Coast Airport Authority has taken the petty "safety" bureaucracy to the next level. To even visit the office, visitors now need to QR scan in, enter a s...t tonne of details so you can acknowledge you have read and understood the safety plan. (ie...see that big door to your left marked Emergency Exit/) before you can even speak to someone. And don't dare make a remark about it to the receptionist because she seems to have the "Don't make me call security" look always at hand. To access the gate that goes to the private hangars that are literally 25 meters away, you need an ADA card (renewed every 2 yrs), and and a AUA card (2 yrs) in addition to your ASIC. Pretyt much doubling up everything. The security has lately been pinging cars that have not put a yellow flashing light on top to drive those 25 metres....or maybe 150 metres to the far hangars.
Yet at the same time as the serious issue of no flashing light on top of your car is being enforced (because the car itself is obviously invisible) we have 737's/A330's separating themselves from each other and all sort of other traffic. When i came it all ran pretty smoothly with about 10 aircraft on the CTAF freq, but still it is not ideal. Maybe Australia in general needs a few less bureaucrats making everyone's life difficult in the name of "safety", and and a few more people actually on the tools, whatever the profession. The safety bureaucracy just seems to accumulate, the number of steps required to get anything done are added for "safety", and then never removed. And they all take it so seriously, as if there will be a terrorists attack if you have a twinkle in your eye as they take your ID photos. Rant done.
The writing is on the wall. An over-regulated nanny state, with a million rules, but very little safety. A national regulator full of industry rejects, busy protecting themselves and a new set of regulations that have cost hundreds of millions with zero safety outcomes.
Meanwhile RPT jets fly around in CTAFs when there’s an empty tower building right there. This is what happens when you operate on skeleton staff. Airlines either struggling to stay afloat, or narcissistic CEOs waging IR wars (sometimes illegally according to the federal court). Baggage handlers are driving vehicles into aircraft fuselages at an incredible rate. Marshallers are directing aircraft into the grass. Aircraft parked on runways because there’s no bays available. Aircraft flying around with MEL and deferred defect lists as long as your arm. Skeleton staffing is every where. The airlines are doing it, AirServices are doing it, airport corporations are doing it - and the Swiss cheese is about to line up.
I can already pre-empt what the the ATSB report will say.
Presumably the ATSB report will say it’s a 1 in 700 year event, the airspace classification is ‘appropriate’ (with some token gesture by Airservices), and do the usual ‘move on, nothing more to see here’ act.
IDK, it's a rumour network after all, my very rough maths is if they did 5 OverTime shifts in a fortnight they'd get pretty close. Point is that the ATC system has always relied on staff doing their "fair share" of OverTime, sometimes is pushed to the limits.
Sorry, major thread drift.
Yeah you are right I went off on a tangent there regarding general insurance, not liability insurance. I always assumed the convention required proof of gross negligence to move past the liability limits.
The news last night said that although it was a CTAF with no control, "Safety was not affected."
The next step will be to leave it as a CTAF, safety will not be affected, they can save all that money being paid to ATC, and the Tower would be a great Bunnings.
The next step will be to leave it as a CTAF, safety will not be affected, they can save all that money being paid to ATC, and the Tower would be a great Bunnings.
And those pesky Tower controllers can be redeployed to fill the gaps in BN Center to reduce some of that overtime!
Thread Starter
Darwin in on the act too. TIBA at night, just when all the arrivals and departures happen. This country really is a third world sh*t hole where you can drink the water.
if and when something does happen (smoking hole in the ground) you watch the airline's, ASA and CASA blame covid, or use the magic words "pilot / controller error." They'll get off free while at we are left to pick up the pieces... (Assuming we are not part of that smoking hole in the ground).
if and when something does happen (smoking hole in the ground) you watch the airline's, ASA and CASA blame covid, or use the magic words "pilot / controller error." They'll get off free while at we are left to pick up the pieces... (Assuming we are not part of that smoking hole in the ground).
Darwin in on the act too. TIBA at night, just when all the arrivals and departures happen. This country really is a third world sh*t hole where you can drink the water.
if and when something does happen (smoking hole in the ground) you watch the airline's, ASA and CASA blame covid, or use the magic words "pilot / controller error." They'll get off free while at we are left to pick up the pieces... (Assuming we are not part of that smoking hole in the ground).
if and when something does happen (smoking hole in the ground) you watch the airline's, ASA and CASA blame covid, or use the magic words "pilot / controller error." They'll get off free while at we are left to pick up the pieces... (Assuming we are not part of that smoking hole in the ground).
If the only 24/7 ATC unit in the Air Force can’t be prioritised one would have to wonder where all the spare bodies have been sent.