Swanwick problems...
Join Date: Oct 1998
Location: Silly Cone Valley
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AAARRRGHHHHHHH!
Sky Goose
If it was as a result of a direct failure on NATS's part, do they get off the hook without having to compensate airlines, passengers and all others involved?
Why should ATC be different from so much management in the UK. Inept, unaccountable, pugnacious, unreconstructed, unreproached individual players who get highly rewarded for repeated abject failures.
Born Sinner, M Mouse
Having spoken to many about BA’s reaction to Friday, and having suffered first hand, the whole response was crippled by indecision, particularly from the CC management. I sat for 5 hrs in an aeroplane occupying a valuable stand whilst we waited for a cabin crew, most of whom had been in the Bouncy Castle for hours.
The solution?
Tiered incident response. Flexible supervision constructed to respond to rapidly changing events. A man for now, a man for next, and a man for 6 hours time. NOW allocates resources in a firefighting role, (eg allocating crews to flights) and that’s all. NEXT searches out resources, in this case calling out extra personnel, polling volunteers, and grouping them into bands of duty time available, and organising them into crews. Mr 6hrs looks at the impact and assesses the effect on future plans, in our case the planned schedule of flights, and looks to see where resources can be amalgamated or cancelled. For instance fly a 777 to FRA and hub and spoke the customers for HAM, DUS, TXL etc, optimising available capacity. The same model applies to many other operational functions, it’s a tried and tested technique. It’s not rocket science, the police use a similar system and they used it at Potters Bar for instance. I thought that went particularly well.
Sadly at BA we had a large number of talent free ‘managers’ rushing around to create the impression of activity and no-one taking decisions. In one case a ‘decision’ to cancel a flight was followed in seconds by a ‘decision’ to re-instate it. That resulted in 95% of the passengers on that flight going without their bags as the CS staff tried to implement their leaders whims. That’s not just my warped and bitter impression, it’s reflected right across the company.
What we did have though was a very large number of really dedicated staff who tried their very best to clear up the mess. A driver who had been on for 14hrs voluntarily, rostering staff, dispatchers, push back tugmen, customer service staff who worked in the zoo that was the terminals. To all of you it was a pleasure and a privilege working with you.
To all at NATS and Heathrow, you have my heartfelt admiration. To carry on through all of that with frequent good humour and consummate professionalism was highly commendable.
I’ll take on the opposition anyday, it’s my management I can’t beat
If it was as a result of a direct failure on NATS's part, do they get off the hook without having to compensate airlines, passengers and all others involved?
Why should ATC be different from so much management in the UK. Inept, unaccountable, pugnacious, unreconstructed, unreproached individual players who get highly rewarded for repeated abject failures.
Born Sinner, M Mouse
Having spoken to many about BA’s reaction to Friday, and having suffered first hand, the whole response was crippled by indecision, particularly from the CC management. I sat for 5 hrs in an aeroplane occupying a valuable stand whilst we waited for a cabin crew, most of whom had been in the Bouncy Castle for hours.
The solution?
Tiered incident response. Flexible supervision constructed to respond to rapidly changing events. A man for now, a man for next, and a man for 6 hours time. NOW allocates resources in a firefighting role, (eg allocating crews to flights) and that’s all. NEXT searches out resources, in this case calling out extra personnel, polling volunteers, and grouping them into bands of duty time available, and organising them into crews. Mr 6hrs looks at the impact and assesses the effect on future plans, in our case the planned schedule of flights, and looks to see where resources can be amalgamated or cancelled. For instance fly a 777 to FRA and hub and spoke the customers for HAM, DUS, TXL etc, optimising available capacity. The same model applies to many other operational functions, it’s a tried and tested technique. It’s not rocket science, the police use a similar system and they used it at Potters Bar for instance. I thought that went particularly well.
Sadly at BA we had a large number of talent free ‘managers’ rushing around to create the impression of activity and no-one taking decisions. In one case a ‘decision’ to cancel a flight was followed in seconds by a ‘decision’ to re-instate it. That resulted in 95% of the passengers on that flight going without their bags as the CS staff tried to implement their leaders whims. That’s not just my warped and bitter impression, it’s reflected right across the company.
What we did have though was a very large number of really dedicated staff who tried their very best to clear up the mess. A driver who had been on for 14hrs voluntarily, rostering staff, dispatchers, push back tugmen, customer service staff who worked in the zoo that was the terminals. To all of you it was a pleasure and a privilege working with you.
To all at NATS and Heathrow, you have my heartfelt admiration. To carry on through all of that with frequent good humour and consummate professionalism was highly commendable.
I’ll take on the opposition anyday, it’s my management I can’t beat
Controversial, moi?
Roobarb
Excellent theory and can't disagree. The situation is so dynamic though I wonder just how well ANY system would cope.
The point I was making that people at the coalface ie schedulers and the like did not have the resources you talk about to enable them to do a better job, but they were doing their best.
I endorse your comments about individual employees.
Excellent theory and can't disagree. The situation is so dynamic though I wonder just how well ANY system would cope.
The point I was making that people at the coalface ie schedulers and the like did not have the resources you talk about to enable them to do a better job, but they were doing their best.
I endorse your comments about individual employees.
Join Date: Feb 2001
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Roobarb:
Your description of the CC is remarkably similar to what I witnessed at Swanwick on Friday morning. There were large numbers of people grouped around the offending console, which was being manned by two controllers with live traffic, trying to decide what to do, (no-one actually knew what was wrong) and it took the best part of 2.5 hours for the decision to be made to try splitting off the other sectors which had hitherto remained together because of fears that to do so would cause further failures. NOBODY was prepared to stand up and say: Do this, and I will take responsibility for it. This typifies the management of Swanwick at present: everybody has something to say but is not directly accountable for their actions. I suggest if they were then our present Manager Operations would no longer be in his job....
Compensation? Unlikely! Haven't you heard that NATS has got no money? (Despite the item on the One o'clock news today that they predict a surplus of £54m on their investments!).
Your description of the CC is remarkably similar to what I witnessed at Swanwick on Friday morning. There were large numbers of people grouped around the offending console, which was being manned by two controllers with live traffic, trying to decide what to do, (no-one actually knew what was wrong) and it took the best part of 2.5 hours for the decision to be made to try splitting off the other sectors which had hitherto remained together because of fears that to do so would cause further failures. NOBODY was prepared to stand up and say: Do this, and I will take responsibility for it. This typifies the management of Swanwick at present: everybody has something to say but is not directly accountable for their actions. I suggest if they were then our present Manager Operations would no longer be in his job....
Compensation? Unlikely! Haven't you heard that NATS has got no money? (Despite the item on the One o'clock news today that they predict a surplus of £54m on their investments!).
