IFATCA The Controller - October 2010

Also in this issue: 4 Flight Plan Adherence4 Erasmus

INTER-

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N OF AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS’ ASSNS.

THE CONTROLLER

Journal of Air Traffi c ControlOctober 2010

4 FOCUS ON TRINIDAD & TOBAGO4 SPANISH SITUATION UPDATE

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Contents

THE CONTROLLER

In this issue:Cover photo:© Mikael Damkier Dreamstime.com

October 20103rd quarter 2010 Volume 49 ISSN 0010-8073

PUBLISHERIFATCA, International Federation of Air Traffi c Controllers’ Associations1255 University Street · Suite 408Montreal, Quebec · H3B 3B6CANADA

Phone: +1514 866 7040Fax: +1514 866 7612Email: offi [email protected]

EXECUTIVE BOARD OF IFATCA

Alexis BrathwaitePresident and Chief Executive Offi cer

Patrik PetersDeputy President

Alex FiguereoExecutive Vice-President Americas

Hisham BazianExecutive Vice-President Africa and Middle East

Raymond TseExecutive Vice-President Asia and Pacifi c

Željko OreškiExecutive Vice-President Europe

Darrell MeachumExecutive Vice-President Finance

Scott ShalliesExecutive Vice-President Professional

Andrew BeadleExecutive Vice-President Technical

Philippe DomogalaConference Executive

Also in this issue: 4 Flight Plan Adherence4 Erasmus

INTER-

NATIO

NAL F

EDERATIO

N OF AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS’ ASSNS.

THE CONTROLLER

Journal of Air Traffi c ControlOctober 2010

4 FOCUS ON TRINIDAD & TOBAGO4 SPANISH SITUATION UPDATE

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this magazine are those of the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations (IFATCA) only when so indicated. Other views will be those of individual members or contributors concerned and will not necessarily be those of IFATCA, except where indicated. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that the information contained in this publication is correct, IFATCA makes no warranty, express or implied, as to the nature or accuracy of the information. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or used in any form or by any means, without the specific prior written permission of IFATCA.

VISIT THE IFATCA WEB SITES: www.ifatca.org and www.the-controller.net

3 THE CONTROLLER

COPY EDITORSPaul RobinsonHelena Sjöström,Stephen Broadbent, Brent Cash, Andrew Robinson and David Guerin

PRINTING-LAYOUTLITHO ART GmbH & Co. Druckvorlagen KGFriesenheimer Straße 6aD 68169 MannheimGERMANY

Tel: +49 (0)621 3 22 59 10Fax: +49 (0)621 3 22 59 14email: [email protected]

Foreword ............................................................................................. 4

Editorial ................................................................................................. 5

Focus on Trinidad & Tobago ................................................................. 6-15

ERASMUS .................................................................................................... 16

Africa and Middle East: THY1123 follow-up .................................................. 17

Day of the Controller ........................................................................................ 18

IFATCA 50th anniversary ...................................................................................... 19

Flight Plan Adherence ......................................................................................... 20

Situation in Spain ............................................................................................. 21-26

Asia/Pacifi c new ICAO Flight Plan ......................................................................... 27

India Aviation Show ............................................................................................... 28

NATCA .................................................................................................................. 29

Americas .............................................................................................................. 31

Feature ............................................................................................................... 32

Charlie ............................................................................................................... 35

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFPhilip MarienVan Dijcklaan 31B-3500 Hasselt, Belgiumemail: [email protected]

DEPUTY EDITORPhilippe Domogalaemail: [email protected]

CORPORATE AFFAIRSVacant

REGIONAL EDITORSAfrica-Middle East: Mick Atiemo (Ghana)Americas: Doug Church (USA)Phil Parker (Hong Kong)Europe: Patrik Peters & David Guerin

Editorial

4 THE CONTROLLER

^ by Philip Marien, Editor

modern companies and their shareholders in both airline and air traffic service pro-vision have very little regard for any long term planning, vision or sustainability of the business they’re in. Just-in-time, off-the-shelf and other ‘visionary’ principles have replaced common-sense and sound judgment. Return on investments is often expected within months, staff intake and planning often looks at most one year ahead and unforeseen circumstances are exactly that, no matter how often they’ve happened in the past. Mega projects are allowed to run up debts, which are mort-gaged by promises of traffic doubling in the next 10 years. But conveniently, they don’t mention that no customer actually wants to pay the service charges required to pay off these debts, should the optimis-tic forecast fail to materialize.

At the same time, accountability for deci-sion-making at the top seems to be at an all-time low. When it all goes wrong, for them it’s most of the time the staffs’ fault: you hear things like: “they’re too greedy and always demand more money.“ It also seems a No Blame policy has been gener-ally implemented for people in charge of policy making. All too often, they simply

go and re-appear, to re-organise another company, sometimes even getting a nice severance bonus on top…

Needless to say, this often comes to a breaking point, resulting in one or the other form of industrial action. In ATC, this can lead to some very odd reactions: from one manager declaring that “working ac-cording to the rules is illegal“ to a “Royal Decree”, which is probably based on some dark-age provision someone forgot to take out of the constitution when abolishing the Inquisition…

Couple this with the questionable role the media plays in all of this sometimes: if you can’t get to work because of a train work-ers strike, it’s often described as an incon-venience. But if you can’t fly to your holiday destination, it’s is described as an outra-geous crisis of (inter)national proportions.

Privatizing public service is also not the magic solution. As demonstrated time and time again, ‘normal’ business princi-ples can’t be applied to everything. While politicians generally don’t want to admit it, there are in fact very few public-sector privatisations that have benefited the cus-tomer. Despite promises, service rarely be-comes cheaper, better or friendlier.

I hope the situation in Spain isn’t one of many more to come, but I think I won’t hold my breath. I hope that, despite this gloomy rant, you’ll still enjoy this issue of The Controller. ^

[email protected]

It appears that after the global economic crisis, air traffic is slowly recovering. Some service providers are reporting cautious traffic increases, which is surely a good sign. There was a slight ‘hiccup’ earlier this year, when a volcano in the middle of nowhere – apologies to our Icelandic col-leagues – caused havoc for a few weeks, but overall signs are promising.

Until the next crisis, that is… Whether it’ll be fuel prices, another terrorist attack, banks not doing what they’re supposed to do or some act of God, the airline busi-ness seems to be impacted as soon as and whenever such an event strikes. It strongly suggests that running an airline is in fact actually continuous crisis management rather than running a company. Unfor-tunately for us, this also affects air traffic services. In fact, by their constant predica-ment and threats to go bankrupt, airlines are very quick at pointing the finger to anyone but themselves. And that anyone includes air traffic control(lers). As a conse-quence of this, we are nearly as suscepti-ble to whatever ‘crisis’ strikes air travel.

The situation in Spain is only one exam-ple. But one generally has to remark that

Editorial

As mentioned in a previous edition of the magazine, Kevin Salter took care of the Corporate Affair section of this magazine for the past 7 years. During a dinner in Frankfurt, Germany with outgoing Editor Philippe Domogala, Kevin – shown in the photo with his wife Anne - was presented with a let-ter of appreciation for his work.

Unfortunately, we’ve so far been un-able to find a successor for Kevin. An-yone interested can forward his or her name to the editorial team.

Photo: HM

Traffi c is picking up again…... until the next crisis

Foreword

5 THE CONTROLLER

optimum economic operations, is environ-mentally sustainable and meets national security requirements.

This vision and objective are unquestion-able; they require each State to provide the same level of service so that there is a seamless experience for all users wherever in the world you may be. ICAO – both in Montreal and through its regional offices – have made great efforts to address the needs of the air transport industry and international civil aviation by coordinat-ing the worldwide planning processes in support of a global air traffic management (ATM) system. These efforts are indeed necessary and critical; and to enable this, aviation stakeholders must continue to provide unstinting support to ICAO.

There is however a reality that must be faced – States are required to provide the same level of services regardless of their own level of technical or financial resourc-es and national priorities. It is not realistic to expect that this will happen easily. Any effective regional planning and implemen-tation strategy must account for this real-ity. If not, many States will continue to lag behind, not even taking the first steps that are necessary to develop an implementa-tion plan. This is true not just for the Global Air Navigation Plan, but for many of the laudable initiatives coming out of ICAO. This will not only hamper the vision of a seamless air navigation system; regional initiatives like SESAR and NEXTGEN will also fail to realize their full potential.

As Contracting States and International Organizations gather in Montreal for As-

sembly 37 and as we prepare for the next Air Navigation Conference, it is impera-tive that we identify the real constraints to a global air traffic management system and focus our efforts on developing crea-tive and pragmatic means to work around them. As air traffic controllers have shown throughout the evolution of air traffic man-agement, workarounds are always neces-sary to make the system work. Surely, if all stakeholders come to the table with the understanding that collaboration and compromise are necessary, we will be able to invent and implement an air traf-fic management system for the future that requires fewer workarounds from aviation professionals than our present system does.

[email protected]

“The air transport industry plays a major role in world economic activity and re-mains one of the fastest growing sectors of the world economy. One of the keys to maintaining the vitality of civil aviation is to ensure that a safe, secure, efficient and environmentally sustainable air navigation system is available at the global, regional and national levels. This requires the im-plementation of an air traffic management system that allows optimum use to be made of enhanced capabilities provided by technical advances.

In summary, the Global ATM Operational Concept provides the vision. The Global Air Navigation Plan, with its initiatives and associated interactive planning tools, serves as a strategic document providing the planning methodology that will lead to global harmonization. The performance framework will provide performance-based transition guidance, including guidance on how to choose performance objectives, set targets and measure the overall per-formance of the system, leading to the establishment of cost-effective global and regional work programmes in support of a global air navigation system.”

These statements are from the foreword to the Global Air Navigation Plan (ICAO Doc 9750). The ATM Operational Concept (AT-MOC – Doc 9854) presents the ICAO vi-sion of an integrated, harmonized and glo-bally interoperable air navigation system with a planning horizon up to and beyond 2025. The stated objective is to achieve an interoperable global air navigation system, for all users during all phases of flight, that meets agreed levels of safety, provides for

Foreword fromthe Executive Board

^ by Alexis Brathwaite, President and CEO IFATCA

States are required to provide the same level of services regardless of their own level of technical or financial resources and national priorities.

THE CONTROLLER

Introduction^ by Philippe Domogala,

Outgoing Editor

This time we’re taking a closer look at a rather small country but one with a large FIR: PIAR-CO. Trinidad and Tobago only has 1.3 million inhabitants; the FIR it controls is 750,000 square nautical miles. It is bordered by New York in the North, Santa Maria to the North East, SAL and Dakar to the East, Cay-enne, Paramaribo and George-town in the South, Maiquetia to the West and San Juan to the North West. The Piarco ACC also controls the upper airspace (above FL245) of the Eastern Caribbean States including An-tigua, Barbados, Guadeloupe and Martinique. T&T is also the

home of IFATCA’s new President Alexis Brathwaite, as well as of former president, Samuel Lampkin. Sam is currently the Manager, Air Traffic Services, but was away on business during my visit. This coun-try and FIR is interesting because it will soon transition from 1950 ATC using large strip boards, plexiglas maps with grease pens and aluminium rulers to determine position and communicating indirectly via Radio operators on HF, towards a sophisticated automated system that will be using radar, ADS and sat-ellite communications. This transition will not only be technical, but also cultural; and the associated training challenge is a very good example of what lies ahead for many of us.

There is a lot to learn by looking at what is happening in Trinidad and Tobago. ^

In December 2009, a retired airline captain found a huge piece of aluminium during his morning jog along a Trinidad beach. It looked like it had fallen from an aircraft. As a pi-lot, he knew that every aircraft part has serial numbers, and in-deed this piece had many (see photo). Searching the internet, he was able to trace it back to a French factory in Toulouse making aircraft. So the piece had to come from an Airbus!

The local press speculated that the part could have come from the crashed Air France A330 in the south Atlantic some months earlier. Others thought it more likely that it fell from a badly maintained South American compa-ny, etc... In any case, the part was brought to the Civil Aviation Authority headquarters in Piarco. Because of its size, it was left to rest in front of the building, beside the car park near the main entrance. There, a clever con-troller (yes, controllers can be smarter than airline captains) looked at it more closely: he discovered a layer of cork between the outer aluminium layer and the honeycomb struc-ture. Cork is normally not used in aircraft manufacturing, but in wine bottles and in the space industry as an insulator against heat.

In December 2009, a retiredairline captain found a huge

f l d h

The local press speculated that the part could have come from the crashed Air France A330

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The missing Airbus

Investigating further, our controller found that the manufacturer identified by the part number, not only subcontracted for Airbus parts, but also built parts for the Ariane rocket for France agency CNES. More specifically, they build the separating cone on top of the rocket. Looking at the sea currents, he found that such a part falling into the sea off the coast of French Guyana could indeed end up in Trinidad. So in fact our mysterious aircraft turned out to be debris from an Ariane rocket launch. It is not known if more of such debris ends up in the Caribbean after every Ariane launch.

The part is still visible today in front of the CAA HQ.

Trinidad & Tobago Fact Sheet

Capital: Port of SpainLargest city: San FernandoOfficial language(s): EnglishDemonym: Trinidadian, TobagonianGovernment: Parliamentary republicIndependence from the United Kingdom

on 31 August 1962Area: 5,131 km²Population: 1,299,953

(estimated July 2009)Density: 254.4/km²Currency: Trinidad and Tobago

dollar (TTD)Time zone: UTC-4Internet TLD: .ttCalling code: +1-868Drives on the left

Source: wikipedia

4 Focus on Trinidad & Tobago

Photo: DP

All photo credits: DP

4 Serial Numbers

4 The part in front of the CAA HQ

6


7 NM off mainland Venezuela and have to ensure that nobody penetrates their air-space.” “They have a radar and we don’t, so they watch us!” says another controller. “Our main problem is communications: because of the size of our FIR there are many relay transmitters, and the VHF is not always good quality. With 10 different Caribbean coun-tries part of the PIARCO FIR, a lot of compa-nies are involved in doing the VHF transmit-ter maintenance. We should have one entity, but it is all very political.”

“In the ICAO NAT procedures, the preceding FIR centre has to give the oceanic entry clear-ance. With the current design of the airspace, that means for flights to the North we have to coordinate every flight with New York, get the clearance from them and read it back on VHF to the pilots. Fortunately for us, Santa Maria passes their own clearances.” “Also in the New York FIR, aircraft fly random tracks, but we had to make fixed entry points into our FIR to avoid conflicts”, says another controller.

Also in the room, there’s another smaller sec-tor that is the en-route sector over the South-ern Caribbean islands and above the TMAs. The sector also controls arriving and departing traffic to Piarco and most of the South Carib-bean airports. Work there is also procedural and understandably, radar here would be most welcome! One was installed in 1991 but it only remained operational for 6 years. Ever since it broke, controllers have been forced back to strips and procedural control again.

Entering the old building brings you back 25 years; entering the Ops room brings you back 60 years.

First the North sector and oceanic part – managed by one controller and a coordina-tor: a very large sector full of strips bays, a 7 by 4 meter map covered with plexiglas on the wall. Tracks and routes are plotted with grease pens and huge aluminium rulers are used to determine distances. The controller has VHF contact with aircraft west of 56 de-grees west. For aircraft further east – the oce-anic part – instructions are passed to the air-craft via a radio operator using HF in another room. Telephone calls to pass estimates to the neighbours. No CPDLC, no ADS, the bare minimum, just like in the 1950s.

“We have flexible tracks”, says one of the controllers working there, “tracks that change every day. That’s why we use the plexiglas map; plotting positions on it is very reliable. 100% reliability here! But we have far more traffic now than we used to have: about 300 a day now and the old system shows its limi-tations. In the oceanic, we use HF and pilots often use satellite phone to contact us be-cause they cannot get us on HF.”

Besides the north sector and oceanic part, there is a south sector that controls traffic above the South Caribbean islands. They control all above 25.000ft except above Grenadines and St Vincent (down to 13.500 ft) and above Trinidad (8000ft). “We are only

The PIARCO Control Centre

^ by Philippe Domogala, Deputy Editor

4 Old PIARCO Operations Room

4 Flight Progress Strips

4 Plotting distances with ruler on map

“They have a radar and we don’t, so they watch us!”

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A Living Museum

Adjacent to the OPS room is a smaller room separated by a wooden wall: here, two con-soles of the new system are located. Those 2 consoles are using Martinique and Guad-eloupe (the 2 French Carib-bean islands) radars. They will be used for controllers to fa-miliarize themselves with radar techniques and the new sys-tem. More controllers will also need to be trained on radar. In March 2010 only 40 of the 70 controllers were radar trained. Those ‘familiarization consoles’ curiously have a strip printer and a strip bay, adjacent to an electronic strip display and a radar display equipped with mouse and keyboard. Keep-ing the 3 systems up to date will surely require more than 2 hands! “But they are for fa-miliarization, not to control traffic…”, I am told. The strips are there not to have the con-trollers make a too big a jump. Looking at the 2 systems side by side, it will be an Olympic jump for sure! ^

[email protected]


250 NM long-range radar and the simulator, but excludes the infrastructure. The 4 new buildings were contracted to a Chinese com-pany. The new radar is from SELEX – primary and secondary under a radar dome, designed to withstand hurricanes. The SELEX system is off the shelf and modular, using standard Dell computers and Barco displays. SELEX is designed to use Eurocontrol standards; while this has some advantages, like the ability to integrate the French Martinique and Guade-loupe radars and making data exchange pos-sible with the adjacent oceanic centre of San-ta Maria, it has compatibility issues with other neighbours: the USA uses AIDC protocols for transferring data between centres, whereas Eurocontrol uses the OLDI standard. In addi-tion the West Caribbean uses ARINC for data link, while the East Caribbean and Europe use SITA. Last but not least, the ICAO Regional plan (NAT-CAR-SAM) is led by the USA and therefore favours US standards.

Kingsley Heireira, a member of the ATM Transi-tion Team, explains: “For the HMI, we chose to remain as close as possible to the old system. This means that we initially retained the printed strips. Transition from procedural to radar con-trol is not easy due to the many neighbours and partners within our FIR. We have to involve all the states, making new letters of agreement with everyone, including all approaches and terminal areas below our FIR. The transition will be difficult, but one of our main advantages in the Caribbean is our good weather! Most pilots flying here prefer to do visual approaches. Fly-ing in visual conditions at low level to show the landscape to their passengers is a commercial

argument for some Airlines. So our system is not stretched to the maximum all the time. For the oceanic airspace, we currently use 120 NM separation. We hope to be able to use RNP10, which will allow us to reduce separation to 50 NM and thus create extra capacity by 2012. We are a small team but are determined to com-plete the transition as smoothly as possible for everyone”, says Kingsley.

The new system will bring a lot of capacity and make the separation part of the job of controllers far easier in the end, but it will be a far more complex system to operate. Training staff from the old to the new will be a real chal-lenge. Adding radar will also mean a big safety improvement, allow more direct routings and reduced separation minima, so the airlines of the region will benefit a lot as a result. ^

[email protected]

The so called “new system” consists of a new control tower, new area and oceanic control centre, a new radar, a simula-tor, a new school with its own simulators, a new headquar-ters administration building and lots of smaller hardware, including new radios and re-mote radar stations.

The new control centre will have 18 working positions for 9 sec-tors. The approach unit of Piarco and Tobago will be integrated. SELEX of Italy won the tender for the ATM system, for a re-ported cost of US$ 20.1 million. This includes the PSSR/MSSR

The new ATM System for T&T


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THE CONTROLLER4 Newly installed radar antenna & dome

4 State of the art displays

4 Kingsley working behind boxes 4 IFATCA PCX besides new ACC position 4 View of the new centre and tower

Radar will also mean a big safety improvement.

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One Giant Leap for Controller

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ICAO. In 1972 the T&T CAD took over and local instructors replaced the ICAO staff.

Talking to Nandalal Manoo, the chief-instruc-tor at the training centre: “The main chal-lenge of the school is the lack of instructors. To become an instructor in the past was an achievement, a goal to reach, a vocation. To-day the job is no longer attractive enough. There is no financial incentive and extra work is required, so most controllers are not inter-ested. We are also far away from everything, with no meal facilities, no public transport, not even on the taxi routes, etc. This means it is not attractive to younger controllers to move here. In addition, the lack of staff means that the few instructors we have can-not attend development courses of their own. This de-motivates them further – the perfect vicious circle.”

“Very soon we expect to go to the new building near the ACC and as a result at the moment no money is being spent in the ex-isting facility here. The building is slowly fall-ing apart and at the moment, we even use home-made facilities like our aerodrome simulator, which is entirely made of paper. But it works! We are currently still training a

large bunch of new controllers for Area Procedural, and a few management courses.”

Regarding the new school being built: “The building is beautiful but no-one knows what will be inside.” says Ma-noo, “we had so far no say at to what equipment, simula-tor etc, will be bought. No consultation, no information. Even the Chinese builders are unaware as they came to us to know where to put power out-lets, lights, that sort of things. They also have no floor lay-out and no idea what kind of equipment will be put in what room. We unfortunately could not help them either”.

[email protected]


The T&T Training Centre

4 Aerodrome Simulator

ICAOloca

4 The Trinidad & Tobago Training Centre.

4 Students training procedural control

Our aerodrome simulator is entirely

made of paper.


THE CONTROLLER 9

Another Living Museum

An old building in the middle of more der-elict buildings, far away from everything and on the other side of the airport: this is home to the Trinidad & Tobago Training Centre.The role of the centre is to provide train-ing to all Caribbean states in all matters re-lated to Aviation, so not only ATC but AIS, management, etc. As such, it doesn’t only receive T&T staff, but colleagues for other Caribbean States as well, such as Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Sint Maarten, among others. The school was established in 1963 as a project between the UN and T&T with instructors provided by

4 Nandalal Manoo, Chief-Instructor


Local Operators’ View on T&T ATC

Caribbean Airlines

National Helicopters

move 100 to 150 passengers every day. Talk-ing to Darell Spice, their Operations Manager, we learn that their main problem with ATC is the departures-arrival routes from and to the airport. “For unknown reasons, helicopters here have to follow the same approach paths as large jets, i.e. using the runway. The VHF fre-quencies are also very poor.”Another interesting feature of Bristow is their safety culture: prominently displayed every-where, they have their “Target Zero” signs. These represent their aim for zero accidents,

off shore oil rigs; and only 10% is govern-ment work, mail, air ambulance, especially between Tobago and Trinidad. “But now that oil business is down helicopter work has reduced” says Cpt. Lawrence Thomas, their chief pilot. “But Safety is still our priority, and how to fight commercial pressure is the key.” “We fly VFR routes mostly direct because we use this small airport away from the Piarco in-ternational airport “main problem with ATC is the poor quality of the frequencies.” ^

We interviewed Capt. Michael Bento, Carib-bean Airlines Chief Flight Instructor.Philippe: How are things for you regarding ATC in Trinidad?Capt. Bento: Our biggest problem with ATC here is the quality of the frequencies and the old equipment they use. Next would be the lack of RNAV approaches. We are in need of those approaches because, as you know, most new aircraft are not fitted with ADF anymore. This includes our newest 737-800. As we plan to upgrade most of our fleet soon, we need those GPS-RNAV routes. ADF-VOR approaches will be obsolete soon. Modern FMC Systems are able to follow CAT 1 ILS-like Approaches using GPS, without the need of any ground aids. It is time to adapt the routes to the aircraft capa-bilities. On the other side we applaud the new

zero harm to people, and zero harm to the environment. It is a safety vision and it seems to work: the company has been accident-free for the past 25 years! ^

pre-departure procedures that have been set up, we are looking forward to having full radar service in the near future. We need this badly. Philippe: You mentioned a new fleet, are you going to expand?Capt. Bento: We are currently in negotiations to integrate Air Jamaica into our company’s network; this will mean a fleet expansion, yes. But at the same time the leases on our current aircraft will expire soon, (most of them range between 8 to 11 years old) so we are talking to Airbus and Boeing for replacing our 737s. But the Dash-8s will also require upgrading, so we are looking at the ATR42 and 72, and the Bom-bardier Q400. While the Q400 is a lot faster (350 Kts in the cruise!) the ATR may be more economical. Having said that, we have not yet made any decision on fleet renewal. ^

Caribbean Airlines is “the” air-line of T&T. CAL started flying in 2007 when BWIA ceased op-erations. The old “Bee-Wee” flew throughout the Caribbean, North America and Europe un-til 2006. Today, CAL operates 8 Boeing 737 NG and 5 Dash-8s.

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4 Captain Bento

4 Dash 8 Caribbean airlines

4 Captain Lawrence Thomas

4 Darell Spice - Bristow Helicopter

4 Bristow’s Target Zero sign

THE CONTROLLER

Bristow Helicopters

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Bristow Helicopters has 6 heli-copters, mainly Bell 412s sta-tioned in Piarco airport. They support oil-drilling operations by BP and REPSOL, and fly to 22 offshore oil platforms. They

National is the second helicop-ter company in Trinidad; it op-erates from Camden Airport, a few miles south of Piarco. It has 8 helicopters (6 large Sikorsky S76 and 2 smaller Bolkow105). Before 1990 they were the Air Division of the Ministry of National Security and became private after this date. 90% of their business is servicing the

We need those GPS-RNAV routes. ADF-VOR approaches will be obsolete soon.

10


Philippe: How do you rate T&T ATC from a pilot point of view?Capt. Steel: I am a B 737 – 800 Captain with Caribbean Airlines which is based in Trinidad, so I fly in the region quite a lot.

The overall standard of controlling is very good, despite the high volume of air traf-fic and the lack of radar; however in Piarco Control airspace, airborne reception on VHF frequency 123.7 is pretty bad in some sec-tors. Also, in the evenings, the frequency can become very congested, as the control-lers have to issue lengthy oceanic clearances whilst having also to perform their other con-trol functions.As for Trinidad and Tobago - my airlines home base – there are no SIDs or STARs for either

For instance, the term “pilots discretion” (issued in conjunc-tion with descent clearances) has crept into the local lexicon, when in fact it is a US/FAA term with specific meanings. I am not sure all the ‘local’ users are aware of some of the con-sequences of using it… ^

airport (Piarco and Crown Point). This means that departing aircraft are sometimes instruct-ed to maintain runway heading (due east) or even worse, southerly headings, so as to be able to achieve the required traffic separation. This sometimes results in actually flying in the wrong direction for 5 to 10 minutes.

Philippe: Are there similar problems in the rest of the Caribbean?Capt. Steel: Yes but different. Very often in Antigua, for instance, the approach and tower (and sometimes even ground) control duties are carried out on the same frequency by one person, so the frequency can get overloaded. There are also occasions when the ambiguity between FAA/US and ICAO/European phra-seology rears its head.

Pilots’ Association – Captain Stephen Steel

Flying VFR in Trinidad

4 On fi nal approach to CamdenPhoto credit: DP

4 C-172 with companyPhoto credit: DP

No SIDs or STARs […] sometimes results in actually flying in the

wrong direction.

Most of the large jets ask for visual

approaches into Piarco.^ by Philippe Domogala, Deputy Editor

As is usual when I travel, I always try the lo-cal VFR. This time it was a good old (and I mean old) Cessna 172 from the local (and only) Flying School in Piarco, Briko Air Serv-ices. A safety pilot was quickly arranged, and a young and bright local instructor, Anton, would help me here. We decided to go to CAMDEN, a small airfield in the middle of the island used mainly by the off shore helicopter company National Helicopters. A flight plan is mandatory, but fast and easy; intersection take off just opposite the parking stand not to bother the commercial traffic; maintaining 1000ft and doing auto info with the other

VFR (mainly helicopters) as the TWR/APP do not have radar.

Landing in Camden airport was straight for-ward: auto-information frequency; 1000ft above runway; large turn and you are on final for the only airport I know which has its control tower actually on the runway (well, almost). Af-ter a visit to National Helicopters, we returned to Piarco after a few 360’s sightseeing over the city of Port of Spain. Separation with the IFRs was also in auto info, as most of the large jets ask for visual approaches into Piarco. Visibility was good, so no problem. The R/T went like this: “American descending 4100 for a visual RWY 10”. We replied: “Cessna ES above City

2500ft”, to which the American came back with: “We’ll stay at 4100 for a while”. After spot-ting the 767: “ES has the 767 in sight; we stay clear behind.“ Both of us continued the ap-proach. The tower cleared us for a direct threshold Runway 10, for a mid runway touchdown to vacate the 3000m runway quickly. Couldn’t have been eas-ier. Some much, much smaller airfields in Europe that insist on complex, penalizing VFR routes and procedures should come down here and learn! ^

Chairman TTALPA and IFALPA Regional, Vice President CAR-EAST

11 THE CONTROLLER


Tobago Tower

The Union View

that plays football every evening. Sometimes the ball goes close to the runway and I have no contact with them… I do not like that.

Ph: How is the work organized? Rebecca: Five controllers from Piarco are sent here for a 3 months tour. Normally eve-ry controller has to do it, but not everybody likes it. For me, it is a bit like vacation: the beach is not far away and there’ s a relaxed atmosphere. No crime and no night shifts, as we only provide tower service and that’s from

0600 until 2200 or last aircraft. We have, un-like in Piarco, a guaranteed full 48h rest after each shift. And everyone lives no more than 15 min away from work in a provided apart-ment. In Piarco, one can be up to 2h by car away from work! “If not for the fire brigade’s football, this would be as close to paradise as possible.“ ^

Philippe: What is the work like and are there any problems?Rebecca: Workload is light here; we only have 25 to 30 movements a day. Besides aero-drome traffic, we also provide traffic info for helicopter traffic to and from oil platforms at sea. No main problems, just, a line of trees partially blocking the runway view (a hazard on the ICAO list) and the fire brigade

4 Piarco Airport

4 NOTAM warning

4 Line of trees that party blocks the tower view.

4 Rebecca Seeperdad

From the control Tower in Tobago airport one cannot see the final 70m of the run-way because of a line of trees growing and growing. A few years ago an attempt was made by the authorities to buy the land in order to clear the trees, but the owner, daring his

Philippe: What are the rela-tions like between the Union and CAA management? When the government created the CAA, the move was sup-ported by all the staff, control-lers included, and by our Union. To determine the salaries a job evaluation made by an in-dependent body would be set up and its conclusions imple-mented within 6 months. This

was done, and we are now 7 years later and nothing has been implemented. Our salaries have been frozen to 2004 levels. In 2007 we started a protest action, but our management obtained a court injunction preventing us from doing any kind of protest or industrial action. In fact, it prevents us from doing any-thing that the employer considers having an effect on negotiations. This court injunction is still in force today. It’s abnormal for such a thing to last for so many years and it affects our relations with management. We are cur-

rently trying to get this injunction lifted by the court.Ph: How are the controllers’ salaries now?Regarding our present salaries, it is really a mess. We have currently 3 different scales for people doing the same job. Compared to when we were in the public service, some salaries were frozen, others were raised by 10%, other were lowered. Last year (2009) we went to the industrial court, and a court order was issued against the CAA to pay the correct salaries, but the CAA has ignored it and nothing has changed. Most controllers supported the move to-wards a new CAA hoping things would be better, but in fact nothing has changed and everyone is frustrated as a result. ^

THE CONTROLLER

4 The 3 million dollar tree

luck, asked 3 million dollars for it. This was of course refused as outrageous. Later the airport authorities asked the owner for the permission to cut the few trees that are caus-ing the problem: the owner answered, sure, to cut the trees, the price is 3 million dollars! As the authorities could do nothing legally to force the issue, they chose the cheaper op-tion: issue a NOTAM.

The 3 Million Dollar Tree

Rebecca Seepersad, Controller in Tobago

Ian Gomez, Chairman T&T Public Services Association, Civil Aviation Authority Section

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Pamela is involved in Planning and Evaluation for the T&T CAA. “My job is to accommo-date our customers, mainly in airspace and route changes proposal, but this needs a lot of research. Unfortunately, I do not have the staff to do this”, says Pamela WILLIAMS. “You have to adapt to the situation. I am also involved in large height deviation reports to

Ph: What are you responsible for and what are your main problems? DR: I am responsible for the 2 towers and the ACC. Staff shortage is the main prob-lem: we currently have 70 controllers and we would need 82 to man the existing facilities. For the new TWR and centre however, we will need 100. In our new centre we will have a capacity for 7 sectors, but we only have 4 frequencies right now. On the technical side, our VHF frequencies are the main issue, but we are busy replacing the transmitters and the antennas. They should be operational in a few months. In our new centre we plan

a highly automated one. It will be like go-ing from the 1950 stone age of ATC to the space age, to put things in perspective. How to motivate people to do this is our main challenge.Philippe: What is the most difficult in the transition?TD: Bringing the older generation up to steam with changes. Since we are in a senior-ity system, most of our supervisors are in the 55-60 age group. We try to have the 40-50 age group more involved in management.

Ph: and the hindering factor is? TD: HR issues. A job evaluation was promised in 2004 within 6 months, it was completed as far as the recommendations are concerned, this was supported by the controller Union, but at Ministry level there were issues raised like parity within the public service which have delayed implementation. We are now over 6 years later and the only result has been what

monitor RVSM. This forces me to look at equipment, training, procedures etc. Determin-ing why the errors occurred is easy, fixing the problem is more difficult.” ^

to go for electronic strips, and flight displays using ADS-C (FANS-1A) over the oceanic part. For the airports and con-trol over the islands we will use radar.

Ph: Do you have plans to keep up the existing large plexiglas map as a back-up?DR: No, we will not keep it. It has served its purpose and be-longs to the past. ^

is called here “ red-circling” or freezing salaries of certain cat-egories of staff.

Ph: Are you short on staff?TD: The total numbers are not too bad, but we’re short on people with certain competen-cies; we are especially short on radar controllers and we need to rebuild competency in time for our new system. ^

Managing T & T Air Traffi c Control

Dayanand Rajnath, ATC Unit Chief, T&T CAA

Trevor Dowrich, Executive Manager Air Navigation Services, T&T CAA


ll d h d l

Pamela Williams, Planning and Evaluation, T&T CAA

THE CONTROLLER

Philippe: What is your main challenge?TD: Our new ATC System. We will be chang-ing from a purely procedural environment to

13


Director General of Civil Aviation and CEO, Trinidad & Tobago


ernizing everything, especially the infrastruc-ture. Coming from the private sector helps with such large plans dealing with acquisi-tions, budget constraints, cost effectiveness, that sort of thing.

Philippe: The new planned infrastructure and buildings are very impressive indeed, but will the inside be as modern?RL: Oh Yes. For the buildings, I wanted something totally new, especially for the ACC. I visited a few places, like the Potomac centre in Washington; I liked the layout there and asked their architect to design our op-erations room. That is why it has this unique round shape. We also selected SELEX as our main CNS/ATM system; this comes together with a new long-range radar and a totally new higher control tower, which is almost finished now. We will have a centralized ra-dar approach for both Trinidad and Tobago airports. We will renew all of our VHF fre-quencies and install new ones to allow us

to open more sectors. We are also planning on studying the introduction of ADS-B and C. The general idea is to maximize efficien-cy in our airspace using the latest modern technology.

Philippe: Coming from basically 1950’s procedural control towards 21st century au-tomated systems will certainly cause some training issues. How will you cope with this?RL: We planned for this. We currently have an agreement with Martinique and Guadeloupe to use their radars for training purposes. We have placed a few consoles fed by those ra-dars in the old operations room. We will train all our staff to use the basic functions first using those consoles; then we will move on gradually to higher level of automation

Philippe: Will the current economic crisis have an effect on your financial targets re-garding this huge investment?RL: Not really. We experienced a 4% de-crease of traffic in 2009, but we are financial-ly secured as our investments are done with government guarantees. As we are still oper-ating as a public service and our operations are also subsidized by our government.

Ph: I understand you have a staff shortage today. How are you going to plan the train-ing to operate the new ATM facilities?RL: We are recruiting new controllers every year, not only to re-enforce our current work-force and compensate for retirements, but also to allow us to grow and to assign con-trollers to various work and projects, like for instance ATFM, ADS-B and C, etc. We intend to develop our human capital and for this we will not save on training. We are building a huge training facility next to our ACC that will not only provide basic ATC courses but also university type courses, like masters in management. We will do this in cooperation with the City University of London. Training is our top concern. ^

Philippe: I understand you come from the private sector?Ramesh Lutchmedial: I come from the airline Industry. When the government was looking for someone to head the newly formed Civil Aviation Author-ity, they needed someone with private sector experience to bring a new approach to busi-ness. I was tasked with mod-

4 Unique shape of new operations room

Maximize efficiency in our airspace using the latest

modern technology.

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THE CONTROLLER14

More and more controllers are reading, learning and becoming aware of innovations in Air Traffic Control, from the educational perspective of globalization that has been facilitated by technology. As a result, when policies in Piarco make their debut, instead of mere, subservient acceptance as had been happening in the past, staff members now endeavour to seek clarity before acquiescence. They want to know about the aims, the vision, the long-term opportunity costs, the impact on fam-ily life and their well-being. The result has been a widening communication gap be-tween management and the employees in all sections. This disparity has become more pronounced due to a lack of controllers and other in-house employees in manage-ment, and the failure to realize incentives in a timely manner. These, if implemented, would contribute to marked improvements in the social infrastructure or working condi-tions of the service.

Some employees (almost half of them) have been waiting about 23 years to realize the promise of better pay, recognition, optimal functioning equipment and other work-ing factors that can increase their intrinsic motivation and in turn, the efficiency of ATC. The

could cripple Air Traffic Serv-ices. Such would result in a net negative rippling effect that extends beyond the national level to the regional and the international level. The issue of adaptation to mo-dernity, therefore, needs to be treated with a sense of guided urgency. Thankfully, though a Swiss cheese problem exists, the holes are counterbalanced by the jovial spirits of dedicat-ed workers who try to keep in step with the dynamic pace of this globalized century. ^

waiting game is still in effect. Controllers have waited so long for the implementation of ra-dar services that their skills at computation in procedural control make them worthy of honour comparable to men and women like Bayes, Einstein, Curie and Ostrom. For this skill has become like a sixth sense through arduous and frequent use.

Many thought that by transferring from a governmental ministry to an authority would help the organization to progress in synchro-nous fashion with their hopes and dreams. But it is just a case of new wine in old skins. Granted, change will come. New buildings are presently being constructed, licenses are granted, novel equipment tested and more responsibility is extended toward those with the appropriate training and skill. But much more work needs to be done, particularly with respect to the policies of the social infrastructure which is now long overdue. Progress has been going on slower than a snail’s pace, habitually taking a number of years to materialize. Factors that include a lengthy bureaucratic process, resistance to change; as is evidenced by a high level of autonomy in decision and policy-making and lack of the appropriate resources to maintain or even revolutionize the social infrastructure


4 Paula MarkPhoto credit: DP

Air Traffi c Control in Trinidad

^ by Paula Mark, BSc International Relations, Minor Economics

4

4 Piarco TWR controllersPhoto credit: DP

An Academic View

THE CONTROLLER 15

^Automation limits todayAutomation in the Geneva ACC and ERASMUS have been sub-ject of two previous articles in The Controller. Step by step, Geneva controllers have dis-covered practical means of in-tegrating new tools into their own way of controlling and, with the help of experience, will come up with even more ef-ficient ones in the future. Who could still believe that control-lers are hostile to progress? But despite all these innovations, the fact remains that the capac-ity of each sector cannot be in-creased in a significant way. It is not en-route airspace, which is saturated, but rather the capa-bilities of human brains that are restricting the capacity of any control sector!

The full use of available airspace with a 5 nautical mile safety separation would require future a/c positions to be accurate to within a few seconds, some 15 minutes in advance. This is far out of reach at present. Con-trollers are therefore working in a fuzzy data environment.

Consequently they must survey the evolution of any “potential conflict” (many of which would not result in actual conflict), and elaborate a revisable strategy at all times. All these tasks are time consuming and controllers must carefully monitor the over-all situation in order to avoid the risk of being overloaded at any point in the future. Such an evolutionary system is typically qualified as “human centred”. Controllers alone take deci-

This new concept, and the means for validat-ing and implementing it, was described in “ERASMUS (towards En Route Atc Soft Man-agement Ultimate System): a friendly way for breaking the capacity barrier”1.

ConsortiumThis project was given such a warm welcome by the ATC community (controllers, cogniticians, system designers, airlines and manufacturers) that the “ERASMUS Consortium” was rapidly constituted and received a contract from the European Commission for studying the feasi-bility and efficiency of this innovative concept.

This Consortium has proven the feasibility of subliminal control and shown that up to 80% of the conflicts could be automatically elimi-nated providing controllers with a miracu-lously quiet, conflict-free traffic (one conflict every ten minutes).

We have recently produced a study2 which shows that subliminal control doesn’t require amended FMS and can start to be imple-mented in the near future. In the meantime the “SESAR Consortium” was established and very soon integrated subliminal control into its “ATM Target Concept”3 but, for unknown reasons, preferred to call it TC-SA (Trajectory Control by minor Speed Adjustment).

SESAR deployment4 classifies this action under Heading CM0403 which reproduces almost identically the terms of ERASMUS project and classifies it under the set of ac-tions for priority implementation which “rep-resents the foundation of the ATM Deploy-ment sequence” and for which “any delay or failure to implement it will impact the rest of the ATM deployment sequence”.

Newly modernized Geneva ATCC is well pre-pared, if it so wished, to participate in the ex-citing operational experimentation that will be conducted under the auspices of SESAR JU. ^

villiers.jacques@ wanadoo.fr

1 Institute of Air Transportation vol 58, June 2004, avalaible on request to « villiers.jacques@ wanadoo.fr »2 « ERASMUS, what has been learned on its feasibility and

effi ciency ? Consequences on SJU programme » avalaible on request to « villiers.jacques@ wanadoo.fr »

3 D3 SESAR Report4 D4 SESAR Report

sions. “Computers are in the loop” only in the sense that they provide controllers with raw or processed data to help decision-making.

The only case in which computers are invited, and urged, to take an ATC decision on their own is in an emergency: a TCAS decision, for instance, has priority over any other clear-ance. This is what is known as the “capacity barrier”. No futuristic project could have any hope of succeeding unless this Gordian knot has first been cut.

ERASMUSWe have claimed that computers can only take ATC decisions in the event of emergency. Is it definitively true?

It was true until ERASMUS proposed a way to unlock the system. The weakness due to the fuzziness of the controllers’ data environ-ment can be transformed into a strength.Nothing is to prevent a computer from acting independently within the limits of this fuzziness without controllers’ prior authorization, since the controllers will not even be aware of such an action, which, for its part, will not interfere with their strategy, and freedom of action.

A discrete area of action for solving conflicts is thus opened up to computers, which can be termed “subliminal control”. Controllers are then benefiting from what could be called an “ATC autopilot”, a peaceful cohabitation of an automated process with the human cen-tred control. For increasing safety, the auto-matic loop can be duplicated by an Airborne Separation Assurance System-one.

by Jacques Villiers, Member of the Academy of Air and Space

ERASMUS, now!

4 Automation

Controllers are […] working in a fuzzy data

environment.

Can Automation Be Taken To The Next Level?

THE CONTROLLER16

THE CONTROLLER

In the March 2010 issue of The Controller, we published an article on the emergency landing of a Turkish Airlines A310 in Lomé Airport in Togo. As the Accra (Ghana) Air traffic control centre had be in contact with the aircraft for some time, its’ CAA made an incident investigation report which highlight-ed some additional points. It gives comple-mentary and in places corrected information to the preceding article. Here are extracts from the investigation report:

BackgroundOn Thursday 14th August 2008, a Turkish Air-lines A310, THY1123, from Istanbul (Turkey) to Lagos (Nigeria) with 195 souls on board experienced multiple system malfunctions that affected the flight guidance and naviga-tional systems. It diverted to Accra FIR (Gha-na) for navigational and radar assistance. The aircraft eventually landed in Lomé (Togo) on marginal fuel. There were no casualties or damage to the aircraft.

Factual InformationAt 21:29, Lagos informed Accra ACC, through an aircraft (Kenya Airways flight KQA 510, en route Nairobi-Accra) and Co-tonou Approach that THY1123, an Airbus A-310 from Istanbul, Turkey to Lagos, Ni-geria maintaining FL190 has lost all avionics on board and was diverting to Accra Airport for radar guidance. At 21:35, two–way radio contact with Accra control was established and the pilot confirmed gyro problem and requested radar vectors for ILS runway 21 in

Three minutes after issuing the landing clearance, THY1123 was still not in sight. Accra requested his approximate distance from touchdown and the pilot replied he was almost landing. At this point it be-came apparent to Accra ATC that the aircraft was landing elsewhere than in Accra.A call was made to Lomé and they confirmed the aircraft had landed in Lomé. Accra Control informed THY1123 via Kenya Air-ways on the Accra frequency that he had landed in Lomé and to contact Lomé Tower on 120.7.

[email protected]

Accra Airport. THY1123 was given a squawk for radar identification but af-ter repeated unsuccessful attempts, it became apparent that the aircraft SSR system had also failed.

Its DME was also malfunctioning as it was indicating multiple distances from the same ground stations. The aircraft was descended to FL50 and then to 3000 feet to report visual contact with the ground or any light.

Kenya Airways flight KQA 513, an air-craft en route from Bamako (Mali) to Nairobi (Kenya), came on the frequency and suggested to THY1123 to fly northwards, if his compass was working, in order to try to get visual contact with land.

THY1123 requested that the runway lights at Accra airport be switched on and off to make identification easier. The Airport electrical section was informed to operate the runway lights as requested because the runway lights cannot be operated from the Accra Control Tower. The Pilot requested for flares to be fired up. The THY Crew was informed that a rotating aerodrome beacon, flashing amber and green light, was serviceable.

THY1123 reported 10 minutes fuel remaining and declared emergency. Soon after, THY1123 reported seeing a ship in the sea and then a “runway 02”. Accra Control cleared THY1123 to land on Accra runway 03.

4 Africa/Middle East

^ by Albert Aidoo-Taylor, Ghana Air Traffi c Control

THY1123 revisited

4 Airport layout of Accra (Ghana), Lomé (Togo) and Lagos (Nigeria) airports.Photo credit: Google/BM

4 Turkish Airbus A310Photo credit: Sean D’Silva.

17

Investigation Shows Event from Ghana’s Side

THY1123 reported 10 minutes fuel remaining and declared emergency.

THE CONTROLLER

The International Day of the Air Traffi c Controller

^ by Patrik Peters, IFATCA Deputy President

traffic system design, evaluation, and im-plementation since 1961’We would like you to dig in your history ar-chives and compare air traffic control in the early 1960ies with today. How did we cope with a very basic system then? From ‘paper & pen’ to ‘A-SMGCS & CPDLC’. How have our colleagues gotten involved in system design, using their experience, to build an increas-ingly complex and well working air traffic control infrastructure - part of an industry, which forms a backbone of our modern lives and society in general? The Executive Board will provide you - as in the past years - with a small flyer and some information to generate your interest and to motivate you celebrating your ATCO day 2010! The celebration year will offer the unique opportunity to promote our often publicly un-known or misconceived profession.

Only few days after ‘Day of the Air Traffic Controller’, we begin our Regional Meeting’s seminars with the first one being at the Euro-pean Regional Meeting in Bled/Slovenia. The objective of this year’s IFATCA seminar is to address, in a more general way, the ques-tion: Why IFATCA? At the end of the seminar you will be able to satisfy yourself that we make a differ-ence. You will know more about our history and the struggles we went through to reach this point – you will learn that many of the issues we busy ourselves with today are not in fact new, but occupied the minds of many who went before us. And you will be able to give a better answer to anyone who asks you about IFATCA and what we do.

At annual conference in Jordan we will come together to celebrate and honour what we have achieved. On 20 October 2011, we will focus on our future and how we would like to see the evolution of the air traffic manage-ment system. We cannot be certain of where we are heading, but we are confident that our involvement will make a difference! ^

When reading this, we are only a few days away from a very special annual event. The ‘Controller Day’ on the 20th October is the day, where we want to promote our profes-sion, highlight our daily work, special achievements, short-comings and problems or sim-ply turn around to our colleag-es and say ‘Thank you’ for the cooperation and professional-ism we enjoy so much when we control ‘our’ traffic safely and efficiently.

IFATCA will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2011 and 20th October will mark the start of our anniversary. As we are all looking forward to this event, a little reflection on our profession is perhaps a good start. What is the nature of our federation? What do we do? How successful have we been? Do we matter? As we promote our 50th an-niversary, you are likely to be asked by others: What is IFAT-CA? What is their business?We want to look back and see where we came from, we want to look at ourselves today and realize where we are now and we also want to be visionary and see what the future could bring to us.Beginning with the past, the first step and one important aspect in the past five dec-ades was technology and the growing impact in our work. We decided on the theme for the ATCO day 2010 to be ‘Integrating operational ex-perience and expertise in air

4 Day of Controller

All photo credits: DFS & BM

October 20th 2010

18

4 Europe

Flight Level Adherence Days

^ by Nathalie Bossiroy, Communications Assistant, Dmean Offi ce, Eurocontrol

sible to the planned cruising level for any portion of the route to be flown, as filed in the flight plan. Both pilots and controllers were encouraged not to request or allocate an alternative level except in the event of an emergency, weather avoidance or to achieve separation.

Protecting ATC from Over-DeliveriesDaily across Europe, regulations are put in place to protect ATC from receiving more traffic than controllers can handle safely. However, it regularly happens that more aircraft than planned enter these protected sectors, exceeding their capacities by more than 10%, which is regarded as an “over-delivery”. To protect ATC from those conse-quences is one of the core operational tasks of Central Flow Management Unit.

When investigating overloads, in most cases it is found that the additional flights entered the concerned sector as a result of: • not flying at the initial requested flight level

(RFL); or, • departing at times different from the origi-

nal estimated off block time (EOBT) or cal-culated take off time (CTOT); or,

• deviating from their original planned route; often direct routeing (DCT).

Reasons for non-adherence are multiple and vary from inefficient turnover process, weather problems, lack of trust in load fig-ures, under-estimating of the network ef-fects, pressure to make up lost time, etc.

In one third of all ATFCM reported over-deliveries during 2009, the actual flight level was different to what was requested in the flight plan. The network impact of this over-delivery can result in: • wasted capacity in some sectors, • an overall lack of confidence in the accu-

racy of forecast traffic counts, • protective capacity reduction, • increased workload, stress or working con-

ditions such that the ability of ATC control-ler may be significantly impaired and thus a safety issue

Local Trials, Cornerstones of a bigger EnterpriseAs a result of the initial campaign, some serv-ice providers (Maastricht UAC and Rhein UAC) studied the scale of the problem locally, con-centrating on flight level adherence. They con-ducted trials where participating controllers were requested to not ask climbing traffic for the “requested flight level” on initial contact. If the pilot requested another flight level from the one filed then that was invariably provided whenever possible. Importantly, all controllers were briefed on the background adherence is-sues that led to the trials and thus were aware of the possible impact on colleagues of exceeding to flight level changes not in the flight plan.

The results of the trials at Karlsruhe and Maas-tricht, presented to the Adherence Day Task Force, were sufficiently convincing that the Task Force members agreed to propose a “flight level“ adherence day. On the longer term, it is planned to be the first of a number of adher-ence days that would progressively address a combination of flight level, route (lateral devia-tion) and timing (EOBT and CTOT).

Every controller wants to pro-vide an expeditious service to pilots where- and whenever possible. But perhaps, the ex-peditious provision of service needs some re-thinking. Ac-commodating requests other than the filed ones could result in problems downstream. The aircraft may simply arrive ear-lier and lose time holding or waiting for a gate to become available. The adherence cam-paign wants to see how we can reduce unwanted consequenc-es of deviations from the flight plan. An expeditious service is good, but an “optimum” serv-ice, which considers the impact on the whole network, is much better. The first operational trial of the campaign addresses flight level adherence.

By the time you read this, a 2-day trial should have been held. Across Europe, air traffic controllers would avoid asking “the requested flight level” on initial contact. Instead, they would adhere as much as pos-

A Controllers’ Business

THE CONTROLLER20

4 Europe

More information about the Karlsruhe and Maastricht trials can be found on www.adherencedays.com.

The idea of running ECAC-wide trials is to identify operational issues, better address the root causes and better understand the needs of all parties involved. It required buy-in from all involved parties, which also triggers a bet-ter appreciation of all operational aspects, from each community’s point of view. Feed-back, which is an essential element of the tri-als, will also bring more than just figures and statistics, but also opinions, controllers’ and pilots’ perception of the situation in regards to workload and flexibility and identify spe-cific local constraints and particularities.Over the past months, extensive coordination took place with all partners involved. An im-portant part of this were the centres, to ensure their participation, to agree the approach and procedures and to ensure feedback on results. At the end of June, a Guidance and Infor-mation document was distributed to service providers and Aircraft Operators. This in-cluded guidance for controllers, pilots and dispatchers, examples of Temporary Operat-ing Instructions and NOTAMs.

EUROCONTROL also deployed a significant communications plan including a new web-site fully dedicated to the Flight Level Adher-ence Days, presence on social media like Fa-cebook, and direct communications actions with the associations of all communities in-volved (controllers, pilots, flight dispatchers and Aircraft Operators).

Measuring and ReportingIn order for the trial to provide a thorough basis for further adherence campaign ac-tivities, the trial report will need to include meaningful findings and information. EUROCONTROL has the ability to measure the filed traffic demand against the capacity level of the sector. These measurements will be an important part of the reporting after the trial. Equally important will be the facts, experiences, opinions, and perceptions re-ported by the operational people involved in the trial. While flight plan adherence in itself is focussed on, analysis will also look at the reasons for non-adherence.

Feedback forms were foreseen for controllers, pilots, and dispatchers to capture not only the hard facts, but also the soft issues. Feedback from all is essential to meet the trial objectives.

A Contribution to the FutureIn the future with SESAR, there will be a pro-gressive move from airspace to trajectory based operations where the Shared Busi-

ness/Mission Trajectory (SBT) is made widely available for ATM planning purposes to au-thorized users. The Reference Business/Mis-sion Trajectories (RBT) represents an agreed 4D profile between AO and the ANSP which takes account of route, weather, approach sequencing and predictable arrival times for ground handling, etc. It will be the role of ATC and the cockpit to match that agreed profile to the maximum extent possible and the flight plan will increasingly be regarded as a contract between parties.

All photo credits: Eurocontrol

The website www.adherencedays.com provides all the uesful information about the trial and its results, it works as a blog, so post your questions, comments and feedback. They won’t be left unanswered. You can also join us on www.facebook.com/adherencedays.

In the meantime, a focus for both initiatives DMEAN and the Flight Efficiency Plan is to improve supporting systems, procedures and flight plan-ning to allow operators to fly more flight-efficiency routes, carry less fuel and reduce emissions. ^

A supervisor from Maastricht UAC involved in their local trial reports: “It is not the aim to hinder the operational tactical decisions at sector

level but rather to decrease the high amount of deviations and at the same time reduce our impact on possible downstream sector overloads. At the same time, a certain degree of margin for both

airborne crews and ATC has to be taken into account.”

THE CONTROLLER 21

4 Europe/Spainp p

Hypertension in Spain


In February 2010, a Royal Decree was im-posed, which drastically changed the con-troller working conditions and pay. The ex-ceptional pay of the 3 controllers in 2008 was publicised in the – even international – press. Conveniently, the outrage of the media con-centrated on those who got the money. The ones who had offered it or the reasons why they received those salaries were appar-ently not newsworthy, not even to this day. Points raised in the media concentrated on negatives and were clearly biased accord-ing to the union: for instance, productivity in Spain is very low compared to that of UK NATS. The reality is that NATS does not in-clude tower controllers in airports with less than 50,000 movements/year in their figures. AENA does - there are 13 airports in Spain with less than 50,000 movements involving 257 controllers - making the comparison un-favourable for Spanish controllers.

Working TimeThe Royal Decree imposed a new contract on controllers to work 1670 hours + 80 hours of mandatory overtime per year. It made the controllers available for any duty 365/days a year for their employer, with possibilities for changes of duty at extremely short notice and

double duties, etc.. It also forced all control-lers above 57 years to retire from control posi-tions practically overnight. This last measure of course aggravated the already existing staff shortage. In Madrid approach for instance, 20 controllers were taken off operational duties from one day to the next. That was 15% of the staff complement. AENA also added their own bits to the decree like possibility to raise maximum sector capacities in the approach and centres without consulting with the con-trollers. As a result, the remaining controllers are today forced to work up to 28 to 29 days per month, which increases frustration, anger and fatigue.Mandatory changes of duty, cancellation of planned holidays on short notice, denying le-gal permissions of absence and cancellation of summer holidays are adding to the predica-ment. In addition to all this, the salaries were slashed by 40 to 50% also without warning.

Six Months LaterDespite all this, the controllers have been trying to maintain a normal and safe ATC service. After six months (August 2010) un-der those conditions, the sickness rates have begun to rise, putting even more strain on the remaining “healthy” controllers. It’s the

Setting the SceneSpanish AENA is a govern-ment-owned service provider. Their bilateral agreement with controllers specified that they had to work 1200h/year. Due to the extreme staff shortage, the company relied heavily on voluntary overtime. As this was extremely well paid, they had no problems finding volun-teers. A total income including overtime of 200,000 to even 300,000 euro/year was not un-common. In 2006, 3 controllers involved in a particular project (the extension of the runways in Madrid) were begged to help AENA. They were offered anything to help deliver the project on time. They worked for a full year without holidays or days off, trained a lot of people and managed to get nearly a million euro for it in 2008. They did not steal the money, it was offered to them and they even received a con-gratulations letter from AENA when the job was completed.

CrisisToday AENA is facing a 10 bil-lion EUR debt. With the eco-nomic crisis reducing traf-fic and revenue, it is almost bankrupt. Most of this debt is due to enormous investments in the development of a few major airports (Madrid, Bar-celona, Malaga, etc…). As a result, AENA has to drastically reduce costs wherever possi-ble. The responsible Minister, Mr. Blanco, had to intervene to prevent AENA insolvency. Two methods were applied: in December 2009, a press campaign was started against the controllers, claiming they were unproductive, earned too much money, etc…

4 The Spanish Press on the mornings of 4 and 5 August.Words like “un-just“, “war” and “catastrophe“ are used in the headlines, as well as quoting AENA as having offered 200.000 eur/year to the controllers to stop the strike.

Photo credit: DP

Disturbing Developments in Controller/Employer Relations

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23 THE CONTROLLER

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perfect vicious circle. AENA responded by having the medical certificates re-checked by government doctors to try and prove the sick-ness was a strike in disguise. Not surprisingly most controllers were found fit for duty – in one case I’ve been told even with a terminal phase of cancer. Relations between AENA management and the controllers continue to degrade further towards a form of constant confrontation. There also seem to be a sort of “revenge” or “jealousy” of some manag-ers against the controllers. Petty measures aimed at reinforcing authority were suddenly enforced. For instance I was shown an e-mail from one ACC manager to controllers inform-ing them that from now on no more flowers or crowns would be sent to funerals of con-trollers. Whether this was part of a deliberate plan to force controllers into action is difficult to determine, but it worked. USCA, the main union representing the controllers, called its

membership for a strike ballot on August 2nd 2010. The results were clear: 92% of the controllers participated in the vote. Of those, 98% voted in favour of a strike.

The Strike ActionThe intent to go on strike was announced in Madrid on August 4th during a press confer-ence. Over 100 journalists and 20 TV stations covered the event. USCA announced the re-sults of the vote but did not specify a date, giving the Ministry the possibility to open di-rect negotiations on 12 points. Those points were all of a professional nature: revision of the working hours, following international practices and standards, stopping the stand by duties system and the last minute changes of duties, re-installation of the 57 years old controllers, independent re-calculations of the sector capacities and involvement of international bodies like ICAO, Eurocon-

4 Cesar Cabo of USCA explaining the strike announcement to the media.Photo credit: DP

4 Massive media attention at the USCA press conference.Photo credit: DP

trol and IATA, etc. At 1700h that same day, a delegation of USCA started negotiations with AENA and the ministry. It would have looked as if every-body was looking for a way to avoid the strike. But the next day, the national press head-lined that AENA had offered the controllers 200.000 euro a year to avoid the strike. This was never mentioned during the negotiations, which con-centrated solely on working conditions. In fact, advances were made on 7 of the 12 points. Then on Friday, AENA left the negotiating table argu-ing that USCA delegation was” divided and did not want to compromise”. ^

4 Baleares ACC in Palma – Notes on the positions condemn AENA management and the Royal Decree.Photo credit: ABC

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AENA stands for Airports and Air Navigation. The operation of the airports constitutes 85% of their business, while Air Navigation accounts for 15%. Most of AENA’s problems and debts come from the airport side. Despite this, the control-lers have been made public scapegoats. Many argue this hides the real problem, which is the airports.

AENA owes some 10,16 billion EUR. Almost all of this is owed to foreign banks. Currently, they pay around 300 million EUR/year interest (source AENA). There are about 1850 controllers operational in Spain. Their average net monthly sal-aries today (Aug 2010) is be-tween 3500 EUR (small tower) to 7500 EUR (senior ACC con-troller - source USCA). There-

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More Problems for AENA in the Future?

fore the controllers salaries today are not the major factor for solving AENA debt problem. On a year-basis, that’s not even half of what AENA pays in interest.

It would appear that the “extreme” salaries reported in the press are a scandal in their own way for AENA. In Spain, government salaries must have the agreement of a gov-ernment body called CECIR. It was found that since 1999, AENA has not submitted their salary agreements to this body. This is of course illegal and we are told there will be penal consequences for AENA. But for the controllers the result of this “mistake” is that their present contract is invalid. AENA is sud-denly paying based on the 1999 agreement, further reducing their salaries.

Another problem for AENA is the resignation letters of 200 of its controllers. According to the law and the contract they have, if the employer changes the terms of the contract, they can resign and will be compensated by a sum equal to 45 days work for each year

of service. The 45 days are calculated on the best income in the last 12 months, so before the royal decree took effect. This makes it very attractive for some older controllers. AENA has so far refused the resignations on the basis that they did not breach the con-tract, the Royal decree, a government deci-sion, did. Needless to say, this was brought to court.

Finally, there are plans to privatise AENA. Another Royal Decree last August confirmed this. Many foresee that, given the disas-trous debt, it could only happen if some of its assets are sold: the few main profitable airports it owns - Madrid Barajas, Barcelona and Malaga. Most of the other airports are not profitable and never will be. So far, the major airports subsidized the small ones. If these crown jewels are sold off, AENA is left with only non-profitable assets – a sure chal-lenge for any company! Maybe leaving their beautiful “blue building” headquarters (see photo) for a more modest location, as they are planning, will help… ^

4 AENA “blue building”, their administrative HQ in Madrid.Photo credit: DP

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11 AUG 2010

USCA called off the strike during the month of August to ease the pressure coming from the tourist sector, which is vital for Spain, and to allow for more negotiations. But, controllers are forced into a corner from all sides: media, AENA, politics, etc.

14 AUG 2010

A pre-agreement was reached between USCA and AENA, which looks like a compromise. The hours to be worked/year have not changed (1670 + 80 over-time) but extra duties, especially those on short notice will come from the 80h overtime. Once these are done, no more duties can be forced. They will try in the difficult facilities to have a 4-days-

Minister Blanco announced to the press that if the controllers did strike, military control-lers would take over and ensure service con-tinuity. This prompted numerous reactions, reminding some of the French strike in 1973: back then, the French military were ordered to take over civilian ATC and 10 days later a collision between an Iberia DC9 and a Span-tax Coronado caused the death of 68 per-sons. As both airlines were Spanish this still has an impact in Spain.

Mi i Bl d h h

Military Controllers to fi ll in for civil ones?

A few days later, the secretary general of the Spanish Military Unified Association (AUME), Mr. Casado, declared that although the jobs were similar, military controllers were not qualified, nor licensed to replace civil con-trollers and that the level of English of many military controllers prevented them from doing this job in any case. A day later Mr Blanco de-clared that if the strike was legal, there would be no need for military replacement. He then went on to add that some military controllers

LATEST NEWS – LATEST NEWS – LATEST NEWS – LATEST NEWS

on/2-days-off system. The Eurocontrol Agency will be asked to participate in an audit of the sector and airport ca-pacities. The 57 years old controllers removed from duty will not return, but will get some other non-operational du-ties within AENA. APROTCA has been asked to form a working group with AENA to work on the training and other remaining professional issues.

19 AUG 2010

The pre-agreement was submitted to USCA membership and 85% of the membership supported the pre-agree-ment (89% of the returned ballots were in favor, 7% against and 4% abstained).AENA commented positively on this pre-agreement. It declared that it will

allow them to reduce en-route charges by 15% - one of their main objectives - while at the same time reduce their deficit. Further negotiations will start in September, with the aim to reach a final agreement before end of Decem-ber 2010.USCA will hold their Annual Congress in Madrid on 14-16 September and no doubt this pre-agreement will be the subject of many discussions. At time of writing (23.08.2010), the Spanish con-trollers morale is still very low, because even if this pre-agreement removes the immediate strike threat and some of the sharp edges of the Royal Decree, many issues like the working hours and the mandatory overtime, remain unchanged.

could be ready “very soon“ to replace civilians “in some tow-ers“. USCA confirmed that the strike, if it took place, would be legal. So the threat of mili-tary intervention seems rather small, even despite the pressure of some airlines to consider the option. ^4 A working position in

Madrid ACC/Photo credit: USCA

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Spanish Controllers Professional Association

Nothing new under the sun?

Ph: Do you expect something from a strike?A: Yes! We need to show the controllers that something has to be done. We cannot contin-ue like this and the strike announcement has at least forced them into the negotiating table.

Ph: What is in your opinion the worst in the existing situation?A: The impact on safety and the fact that controllers are tired – even exhausted. In July, one Malaga tower controller was forced to work 29 days out of 31, including 8 night shifts and 5 double shifts. He only had 2 com-plete days off in that period. Duties of 27 and 28 days per month are common everywhere in Spain now.

Safety is very much compromised. We see in Madrid for instance a 200-300% increase in incidents, and what’s worse, of type “A” incidents (those with risks of collision). Our management has the power to increase the maximum sector capacities by 10% in order to reduce delays. Combine this with the ros-ters and the result is very worrying.There are other, more local issues like in Pal-ma: when staff is short, management com-

bine the approach sector with an en-route one. This means the scale used in the sector prevents the approach part to be performed correctly. Some controllers improvise and sometimes run between 3 screens. In Canar-ias, they suspended the HF service due lack of staff: aircraft have found themselves for up to 20 minutes without radio contact. There is no time for briefings, so major changes (like level changes in a letter of agreement, or new routings etc.) are communicated by photocopies put into your locker/mail box, which you are not obliged to check before going to work. All training courses (instruc-tors, supervisors, refresher, emergency, etc.. ) have been suspended since 1999.

Ph: Do you see a way out of this mess?A: Unfortunately not. The responsible min-ister obviously does not understand how fragile, sensitive the balance are to get ATC right. Instead he is always referring to us as a privileged “mafia” who is the highest paid and the least productive in Europe. Whether this is due to ambition or ignorance, or a mix-ture of both, we do not know for sure, but the result is a disaster. ^

Philippe: What is for you the root of the problem today?APROTCA: The staff shortage. AENA used the “Royal De-cree” to tackle the staff short-age by imposing new working conditions and reduce our salaries and allowances. AENA focuses on reducing costs and all their actions are economi-cally driven, but staff shortage is the root of the problem.

4 Jesus Lera and David Guillamon, APROCTAPhoto credit: DP

4 Teresa at work. Photo credit: BN4 T t k

Teresa joined ATC in 1975 as one of the first female control-lers in Spain. ATC was military then and under Franco’s dic-tatorship. The plan was to be trained and qualified in Barce-lona tower, but she was not al-lowed to go there. The military chief in charge of ATC said to her: “A woman could distract

men working there and anyway: women can-not be trusted!“ So she ended up in the ACC.

Teresa: “It was terrible then, many incidents, technical problems, radar went off the air for hours and we had 2 or 3 air misses a day. The French controllers were asked to warn us if they saw two aircraft getting too close in our air-space. People were scared to go to work. We (the civilians) decided to get organized. I was leading the “rebellion”. We met outside work and made a plan. On the 13th of August 1976, one of us went to a public phone in a nearby village (Prat de Llobregat) and called Marseilles ACC asking them to put some restrictions on the number of aircraft coming to us from next morning. During the day, the night shift stayed on to show support to the morning shift. When restrictions started, big delays resulted. The military supervisors called the French and asked them to lift the restrictions, but they replied

they would only do so when the civil controllers said so. Air Force top brass came to the ACC to threaten us, but we kept our stand. Then one of us (the son of a General!) went to the press and told everything, the incidents we had, the tech-nical failures, everything. The police watched us, our telephones were tapped, but the situation was in our favor and they knew it. We formed an association, and called for our first industrial action against the military. We finally won and in 1977 ATC was transferred from the military to the Ministry of Transport.

Now I will retire on the 14th of August 2010, as I become 65. It is amazing to see that some of the problems we faced in 1975 are resur-facing today, 35 years later. It’s even more amazing to see that since that time, we have had a full democracy in Spain and it is a social-ist government that is re-imposing dictatorial working conditions on the controllers!“ ^

THE CONTROLLER26

Jesus Lera, General Secretary and David Guillamon, International Relations APROCTA

Teresa Noguera, Supervisor Palma de Mallorca ACC, looks back…

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The SettingAn ATC unit anywhere in the world – an en-route centre, an approach/terminal radar unit or a control tower.

The Opening SceneIt is a Thursday morning a couple of years in the future. You arrive at work for another early shift just as you have done many times before - the early morning rush, a couple of quiet hours then the build up to the lunchtime peak traffic. However the weather is good, so you are antic-ipating an easy day. However as you enter the normally calm and tranquil operations area you are surprised to hear many shouts of ‘Standby’ and ‘Call you back’, to see many people rush-ing around with pieces of paper in hand and many ringing telephones going unanswered. This will not be an easy day.

The PlotIt is Thursday, 15 November 2012, imple-mentation day for the ICAO new flight plan format. Although there has been more than four years notice of the change, it is only in the past couple of years that States and airlines have been talking about the change – they have been planning, they have been holding co-ordination meetings and they have organ-ised working groups. So what went wrong?

The FlashbackFlight Plan formats have changed before, but on those occasions they were filed by pilots personally and the flight plans were processed manually – any errors were easily corrected by hand and any problems soon re-solved with a personal touch. Today’s auto-mated processors will reject or not process any message that has the smallest error.

Act TwoOn 25 June 2008, ICAO announced the chang-es to the flight plan format to be implemented by 15 November 2012. Many of the ICAO Re-gions and in Europe, Eurocontrol, have estab-lished Flight Plan Task Forces or Study Groups to develop regional transitional plans, and in late 2009 and early 2010 ICAO held a number

Let’s all hope it has a happy ending!

This is why it is essential that IFATCA actively monitors the development of transition plans around the world and works closely with other stake-holders to identify the neces-sary training requirement. Eve-ry MA should be aware of the status of the transition plan for their State and every controller should prepare for the change-over and be aware of their unit’s contingency measures in the event of any problem. Fur-ther information is available on the ICAO website:http://www2.icao.int/en/FITS/Pages/home.aspx ^

[email protected]

of seminars and workshops around the world to provide more information. However, there is still one over-riding issue that still has to be resolved – that of worldwide co-ordination. Each Region is formulating its own transition plan independently - in the Asia Pacific Re-gion, a phased transition over 10 months is planned, but an adjacent region is planning a single day changeover.

Add to this complexity the fact that the new flight plan format cannot be processed by the present automated flight plan systems. Therefore every ATC unit has to obtain a new processing system, or modify their existing system to handle the new flight plan format before 15 November 2012. With the varying changeover times during the transition pe-riod, some airlines or operators and service providers may have to work with two ver-sions of the same flight plans.

The Penultimate SceneThe flight plan is the sole source of all the information for every aircraft in the ATC system - from flight progress strips to radar display data blocks. Therefore if there is any problem or any delay in processing, sending or receiving a flight plan, the repercus-sions could be dire. Although there is a general level of confidence that most States will be able to handle and process the new flight plan on 15 November 2012, there is a genuine concern in some offices that if there are intra-region or inter-regional co-ordination or communication prob-lems in handling the new flight plans, flights throughout the entire ATM system could be affected before and on 15 November 2012.

The FinaleSo how does the story end? Just like every modern Hollywood film you will have to wait for the sequel! FLIGHT PLAN 2 – due for release at the end of November 2012.

Coming soon to an ATC Unit near you …

^ by John Wagstaff, IFATCA ASP Representative

4 John Wagstaff

4 Current fl ight plan form

A true-life drama full of suspense and intrigue …Starring YOU and co-starring the entire worldwide ATC Network

THE CONTROLLER 27

India Aviation 2010

^ by Sean D’Silva, Aviation Photographer/Reporter

‘Indian Aviation: a Vision for the Future’, a conference organized by AeroPodium a day ahead of the actual show, explored the lat-est developments in the commercial and business aviation sectors of India. The main purpose was to debate solutions to the cur-rent issues that affect the aviation industry in this huge marketplace as well as discuss new challenges for the future. For Boeing, the playing field in India’s civil aviation sector re-tains its full potential. “We see 2010 as a year of recovery and profitability. In late 2011, we expect to see a potential of aircraft orders based on lead time requirements”, said Dr. Dinesh Keskar, head of Boeing India.

India Aviation 2010 had over 40 aircraft on static and flying display. 18 hospitality chalets were occupied by various companies from India and overseas to conduct meetings with their prospective customers in a typical air show atmosphere. Over 115 companies from overseas participated in the show. Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Russia and the Netherlands had pavilions at the show. The new AN-148 from Antonov UAC-Russia was on display for the first time.

Immediately after the inaugural ceremony end-ed, hundreds of spectators at the Begumpet Airport were left aghast on seeing an HJT-16

Kiran MK II, belonging to the Navy’s Sagar Pawan Aerobatic Team, crashing into a three-story building. During an aerobatic display, the aircraft, after making a few spins, nosedived to the ground. The two pilots, Commander S K Maurya and Lieutenant Commander Rahul Nair, were killed in the crash. A civilian was killed while seven others were reportedly in-jured. Meanwhile, the other three aircraft in the formation managed to land safely. The upbeat mood at the venue soon turned somber as the news about the casualties poured in.

Significant business developments took place at the airshow. GE Aviation and In-dia’s national carrier Air India signed a GE Branded Services Agreement (GBSA) under which GE Aviation will provide technical sup-port as Air India offers maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services for the GEnx-1B engine and further advances its plans to become a global MRO service provider. Un-der the GBSA, Air India will be licensed to perform maintenance and overhaul work on the GEnx-1B engine. GE will provide Air In-dia with assistance on overhaul work scoping and component repair licenses, comprehen-sive material support and training. The GEnx-1B engine will power Boeing’s 787 aircraft. Air India has 27 GEnx-1B-powered Boeing 787 aircraft on order.

The second edition of the India Aviation 2010 got off to a grand start at the Begumpet Airport, with several national and inter-national dignitaries present. Be-sides experts from the civil avia-tion sector, they included Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister Dr K. Rosaiah. Every speaker at the inaugural ceremony focused on the tremendous potential for growth of the civil aviation sector in India. Inaugurating the exhibi-tion, Minister of Civil Aviation, Shri Praful Patel observed that the compounded annual growth rate in civil aviation was 18 % in 2009, despite the global slow-down. “We have been able to weather the thunderstorm that struck the world with composure and I am looking at 2010 with cautious optimism and am hope-ful that the worst will be over this year,” he said. He added that with the USA as focus country and France as partner country, this year’s air show reflected that the Indian civil aviation sector had arrived on the world map.

4 Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel lights the traditional lamp during the opening ceremony

4 Dignitaries at the inaugural ceremony

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THE CONTROLLER28

Indocopters, a Vectra Group company, an-nounced the sale of two AS 350 B3 to Sum-mit Aviation; one VIP AS 350 B3 to VASANT-RAO MOREY and a Mumbai based corporate house signed for an EC135. Indocopters has a state of art facility and a specialist team trained at Eurocopters. They’re experienced in maintaining and servicing the helicopters in India. The company provides world class professional service to its customers with an aim to become the industry reference in heli-copter sales, MRO and Support Services.

Taj Air, the preferred charter company amongst the discerning travellers, has ex-panded its existing fleet to enhance its of-fering of efficient and highly personalised travel experiences. For the first time Taj Air is exhibiting at the India Aviation 2010 show-casing the new additions to its fleet of jet air-crafts – a brand new Falcon 2000LX jet and P.180 Avanti II turbo- prop aircraft.

Amongst the various interna-tional aircraft companies at the exhibition, there were quite a few Indian firms, which put up exhibition stalls. HAL (Hin-dustan Aeronautics Limited) displayed an interesting bill-board focusing on Air Traffic Management.

To sum up, though the event witnessed an unfortunate ac-cident during the inauguration ceremony, the overall manage-ment of the event was qualita-tively superior to INDIA AVIA-TION 2008. At the same time, it raised expectations: the sky is the limit and one would ex-pect INDIA AVIATION 2012 to again outclass the previous editions! ^

Air India, India’s national carrier, celebrated the delivery of a new A320 aircraft. The de-livery increases the total number of A320 air-craft in the airline’s fleet to 46.

IndiGo, the award-winning low-fare airline that is redefining the airline business in India, took the delivery of its 25th A320 aircraft on the opening day of the air show.

4 IN078 minutes before it crashed 4 IN078 crashed into a building, killing the two pilots and one person on the ground.

4 AN-148 on static display.4

4 VT-IGK on delivery to IndiGo4 VT-IGK on delivery to IndiGo

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THE CONTROLLER 29

Partnership for Safety

^ by Doug Church, NATCA Director of Communications

out that included an introductory video to all FAA employees and NATCA and PASS members that featured Babbitt, NATCA President Paul Rinaldi and PASS President Tom Brantley.

“We very much wanted to participate,” Rinaldi said. “Because we are on the front lines of safety with every flight, we take any incidents that have occurred in the system very seriously. We have an extremely capa-ble and professional membership and this Partnership for Safety program has given us the opportunity to uphold those ideals in addition to working to improve the U.S. Na-tional Airspace System.”

When compared to the Air Traffic Safety Ac-tion Program (ATSAP), the Partnership for Safety initiative bears some similarities, es-pecially when it comes to risk identification and mitigation. However, ATSAP is primarily a non-punitive, voluntary self-reporting pro-gram, where PFS intends to engage every FAA employee to ensure that each employee has the opportunity to voice their concerns when it comes to the safety of the system.

“The major difference between this program and others is the employee engagement at every level in an effort to ensure that every-one’s input is heard and valued,” said NATCA’s National Safety Committee Chairman Steve Hansen. “We have encouraged all of our NAT-CA members at the local level to be proactive, engage their local FAA management and sup-port this initiative. The agency has committed to addressing the top safety issues identified as a result of this initiative; it’s our role to give them something to work with.”

PFS has two tracks running parallel; an in-dustry-wide effort to identify risks and solu-tions dealing with communications, and an internal FAA risk identification and solution process. Initially both tracks worked in tan-dem as risks and solutions were entered into the database at the facility level; this is the point where the two initiatives diverge.

The communications initiative gathered with stakeholders throughout the aviation indus-try on 17 August in Washington, D.C. At this FAA “Partnership for Safety Summit,” officials from the FAA, NATCA and PASS joined the stakeholders to discuss how best to improve the system by pulling together collective ideas.

Representing NATCA were Rinaldi and Safe-ty and Technology Director Dale Wright. Brantley of PASS was also present, as well as Babbitt and FAA Air Traffic Organization Chief Operating Officer Hank Krakowski. In his opening remarks, Babbitt stressed the importance of proactive changes to the sys-tem and, most importantly, punishment-free reporting – a subject that proved to be a run-ning theme throughout the day. “At the end of the day,” Babbitt said, “our safety culture is dependent on anyone in the system being able to say, ‘This isn’t right,’ without fear of retribution.”

In addition to highlighting the importance of collaboration in his address to attendees, Rinaldi also pointed out the effect that re-lationships between labor and management have on controllers. “When you don’t train, when you don’t respect the workforce, safety is affected,” he said. “Poor labour relations can denigrate a good safety relationship.”

Rinaldi stressed the unique set of circum-stances that controllers face that are differ-ent from pilots and often make an adver-sarial relationship with management worse, stating “We don’t have a cockpit door that we shut, closing out management and ena-bling us to do our jobs undisturbed.” ^

[email protected]

One of the key aspects to the improving relationship be-tween the U.S. National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been the emphasis on building a collaborative part-nership to address important safety issues related to every-thing from new equipment to procedures and training.

Earlier this year, FAA Admin-istrator Randy Babbitt ap-proached NATCA and the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS), which rep-resents FAA technical staff, to help him answer a call to action to address a series of serious safety incidents that had oc-curred in the U.S. system and try and find solutions, NATCA responded favourably.

The “Partnership for Safety” program was formally an-nounced on July 1 with a roll-

4 Americas – NATCA

4 NATCA President Paul RinaldiPhoto credit: NATCA

4

NATCA and FAA announce new Safety Program

Poor labour relations can denigrate a good safety

relationship.

THE CONTROLLER30

ATCANA will continue to rep-resent the controllers from Cu-racao and Bonaire. Controllers of Sint Maarten can form a new association and will be able to join IFATCA. ^

Netherlands AntillesThere are winds of change in the Caribbean. The Netherlands Antilles, which is currently a country within the Kingdom of The Neth-erlands, will be disbanded on October 10th 2010 (10-10-10). Two new constituent coun-tries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands will be formed: Curaçao and Sint Maarten. They will get the same status as Aruba got in 1986. Meanwhile, the BES islands - Bonaire, Saba, and Sint Eustatius - will become direct parts of the Netherlands as special munici-palities. One of the consequences will be an administrative restructure within the Neth-erlands Antilles Air Traffic Control (NAATC, the current service provider). The service in the Curacao FIR will continue to be provided by NAATC in accordance with the current agreement with the Netherlands. Respon-sibility for the Flamingo CTR in Bonaire will shift to the Netherlands but the controllers working in the Bonaire tower will be em-ployed by NAATC N.V.

Sint Maarten, in the San Juan FIR, will be re-sponsible for their own TCA. There are no air traffic services on Saba, while St. Eustatius falls under Sint Maarten TCA. It’s not clear what will happen there, after the transition on 10-10-10 because Sint Maarten provides ATC services from their tower for the FD Roosevelt Airport on Sint Eustatius.

Safety InitiativesAmerica Region has been submitted into a bunch of projects, especially safety related. The enhancement of safety has become one of the main concerns within the Pan-Ameri-can ATM community. That’s the reason the Regional Aviation Safety Group Pan-Ameri-can was created 2 years ago in accordance with the Global Aviation Safety Roadmap (GASR) and Global Aviation Safety Plan.

The RASG-PA is established to be the focal point to ensure harmonization and coordina-tion of safety efforts aimed at reducing avia-tion safety risks in the North American, Cen-tral American, Caribbean (NACC), and South American (SAM) Regions and to promote the implementation of resulting safety initiatives by all stakeholders. Its three main objectives are to significantly reduce:1. LOC-I: Loss of Control in flight2. RE: Runway Excursion 3. CFIT: Controlled Flight into Terrain

This will be achieved through the involvement of all stakeholders including ICAO, States, International Organizations and the indus-try. IFATCA is among those international Organizations involved in the enhancement of safety in the Americas region. Together with IFALPA we are committed to reduce the CFIT, we’re both champions in that domain.

Regional Update^ by Alex Figuero,

EVP Americas

4 Americas

4 Famous approach to St. Maarten’s Princess Juliana International AirportPhoto credit: © Marc Grandmaison | Dreamstime.com

4 Caribbean Islands, which are part of the Kingdom of The NetherlandsPhoto credit: Wikipedia

4 Alex Figuero, EVP AMAPhoto credit: AF

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Time Zones & Meridians

^ by Philip Marien, Editor

ryone to synchronise their clocks, a time ball was installed in many harbours. The ball was raised just before noon or one o’clock. When it drops, it means it’s precisely on the hour. Liverpool even had a 1 o’clock cannon, which was fired from 1867 until 1969. The first time zone in the world was estab-lished by British railway companies in 1847. Using portable chronometers at first and lat-er via telegraph, this quickly became known as Railway Time, even though it was based on GMT. All stations in the United Kingdom used the same time from then on. Even though nearly all of Great Britain’s public clocks were using GMT by 1855, it was not made Britain’s legal time until 1880. Some old clocks from this period have two minute-

hands - one for the local time, one for GMT. Before that, in 1868, the (then) British colony of New Zealand was probably the first to of-ficially adopt a standard time throughout the country.

The wild, Un-synchronised WestMeanwhile in the United States, each rail-road company used its own standard time, usually based on the local time of its head-

Some issues ago, we looked at how time became more and more accurately measured over the years. One thing that was only briefly touched upon was the Greenwich meridian, UTC and time zones. I’ll try to shed some light on how those things came to be and on some more notable peculiarities…

Trains & TelegraphsUntil the arrival of fast transport and communication systems– namely trains and telegraph – most towns and cities had their own time. In a lot of churches and / or town squares, you can still find a metal (usually copper) line embedded in the ground. When the shadow, or in some case a beam of light from the sun through a hole fell on that line, it meant that it was noon – but only there and then. As you probably know, noon is defined as the sun reaching its highest point dur-ing its passage across the sky. But this is dependent on the longitude of the observer. For example, Bruges, Belgium is about 80 km west of Antwerp. This means that the sun rises, reaches the highest point in the sky and sets about 5 min-utes earlier in Antwerp than it does in Bruges. This presented a problem for the early rail-ways: when they published the timetables, the times had to be adjusted for the local time as there was no generally agreed and coordinated ‘time’.

GreenwichIn 1675, when the Royal Ob-servatory was built in Green-wich, a standard time was introduced known as Green-wich Mean Time (GMT). Main purpose was to aid (English) mariners to determine their longitude at sea. To allow eve-

4 Nations that touch Prime Meridian in blue.Photo credit: Wikipedia

4 Tablet in Washington showing that a Washington Meridian marker stone was formerly located 52 feet 9 inches (16.1 m) west of the tablet.Photo credit: dbking

How was the world divided up into time zones.

New Zealand was prob-ably the first to officially adopt a standard time.

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George Airy in 1851. As the British Empire was one of the larger seafaring nations, they produced a lot of maps that used the Greenwich merid-ian as reference. The USA and Germany gave up their pro-posals relatively quickly and supported Greenwich. Others, such as San Domingo, Brazil and France objected more strongly. A proposal for a more ‘neutral’ place – on the Canary Islands – didn’t find consensus. Eventually, the meeting voted on 7 resolutions. Resolution number 2 defined Greenwich as the Prime Meridian. This resolution was accepted 22 to 1, with San Domingo voting against. Brazil and France ab-stained and the latter actually continued to use the Paris me-ridian until 1911...

Further accepted resolutions proposed a universal day: this starts at midnight at the prime meridian and is 24 hours long. Despite attempts and con-trary to popular belief, the

ConferenceA lot of the countries attending the confer-ence proposed their own preferred merid-ian. Proposals included San Domingo (Do-minican Republic), Paris, Berlin, Washington and of course Greenwich. While there were a lot number of candidates, one was already more popular than others. The Greenwich Meridian, based at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, UK had been established by Sir

quarters or most important terminus, and the railroad’s train schedules were published using its own time. Some major railroad junctions served by several different rail-roads had a separate clock for each railroad, each showing a different time; the main sta-tion in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for exam-ple, kept six different times. While standard time zones were proposed as early as 1863, it took until Sunday, November 18, 1883 for a set of time zones to be defined. That day, also called “The Day of Two Noons”, each railroad station clock was reset as standard-time noon was reached within each time zone. The zones were named Intercolonial, Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific. Within one year, 85% of all cities with popu-lations over 10,000, about 200 cities, were using standard time. A notable exception was Detroit (which is about half-way be-tween the meridians of eastern time and central time), which tried different zones until deciding on eastern standard time in 1916. U.S. Congress adopted the Standard Time Act in 1918, formally ending the con-fusion once and for all.

MapsBesides the difficulties of coordinating time, a related problem was that maps used for shipping all used a different coordinate ref-erence: most countries used their own ref-erence points. In Europe alone, there were some 20 different meridians – Russia alone had 3! This became increasingly messy and probably dangerous, given the fact that ships were going further and faster with the arrival of steam driven boats. When switch-ing maps, navigators had to take the differ-ent reference systems into account, which could easily lead to confusion and danger...

Using the equator as reference for latitudes had evolved over the centuries and was un-challenged. Early astronomers and naviga-tors had long been able to determine their latitude depending on the position of the stars and the sun. Using the midway point between the two poles and perpendicular on the axis of the earth was a logical choice (even if they didn’t always realise it).

Coming up with a reference point for the lon-gitudes however was a lot harder, as there was no ‘logical’ or mathematical starting point for longitudes. By 1884, a number of countries realised that there was an urgent need to have one worldwide agreed refer-ence system for longitudinal coordinates. U.S. President Chester A. Arthur took the ini-tiative to organise the International Meridian Conference, in Washington D.C. in October 1884. 41 delegates from 25 nations attended the meeting.

4 A laser at the Greenwich observatory visualises the Prime MeridianPhoto credit: Markhamilton at en.wikipedia

4 The clock on the Bristol Exchange showing an extra hand for „Bristol Time“Photo credit: Wikipedia

It was possible to divide the world in 24 wedge-shaped sections, also called lunes.

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ChallengeWhile time zones regularly change/shift all across the world, the agreement to use Greenwich as a reference has remained largely unchallenged for the last 125 years or so. It looks though as if this is about to change: Construction of the worlds’ largest clock is underway in Mecca, Saudia-Arabia. It’ll be locataed at the top of the Abraj Al-Bait Towers, which is also known as the “Mecca Royal Clock Hotel Tower”. Contracter for the construction is the Saudi Binladin Group. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is: most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden is one of the company’s founder 53 children…

But back to the tower. To give an idea of the size: at 601 meters, the clock will be 6 times higher than London’s Big Ben. It’ll be visible from about 17km distance at night and about 11km during the day. Two of the clock faces including the inscription will be 80 meters in height and 65 meters in width, and the dial diameter will be 39 meters. The other two clocks will be 65 meters in height and 43 meters in width while their dial diam-eter will be 25 meters. Two lifts will take visi-tors to a balcony with a width of five meters below the clocks. The tower also includes a Lunar Observation Center, an Islamic muse-um and the biggest hotel in the world. The Royal Clock will announce daily prayers and the Lunar Observation Center will be used to sight the moon during the holy months, e.g. to determine the start of Ramadan. On spe-cial occasions, 16 bands of vertical lights will shoot some 10 km up into the sky.

As the clock is undergoing testing, Muslim clerics and scholars claim to have irrefutable scientific proof that Mecca is the centre of the world and therefore the only logical choice for the global reference meridian (and there-fore time). They fully intend to challenge the postion of Greenwich as reference point for our planet. To be continued, no doubt… ^

[email protected]

conference did not formally adopt the system of actual time zones. These are rather a consequence of the decisions made at the conference. Since noon at the prime meridian was now defined, it was pos-sible to divide the world in 24 wedge-shaped sections (also called lunes), bordered by me-ridians each 15° (=360°/24) of longitude apart. The local time in neighbouring zones would differ by one hour.

Time ZonesOr that was the idea: political boundaries, geographical prac-ticalities, and convenience of inhabitants can result in irregu-larly-shaped zones. Most keep to hourly or half-hourly offsets. Two places in the world how-ever have gone for a 45 minute offset: Nepal (UTC+0545) and the Chatham Islands - about 800km off New Zealand; not to be confused with the Chatham Islands in Canada or Australia - (UTC+1245). About 200 peo-ple who live in a ‘small’ (it’s actually the size of Belgium) part of Western Australia un-officially use UTC+0845. They do this to avoid a 1,5 hour gap between the Western Australia and Southern Australia time zones.

While there are 24 lunes, the earliest and latest time zones are 26 hours apart. This means that any given calendar date ex-ists at some point on the globe during 50 hours. For example,

August 15 begins in time zone UTC+14 at 10:00 UTC August 14. It ends in time zone UTC−12 at 12:00 UTC August 16.

TriviaSurprisingly (at least for me), France has the most time zones, namely 12: from UTC+12 in Wallis and Futuna to UTC-10 in French Poly-nesia. On March 28, 2010 Russia eliminated two time zones, going from 11 to 9, but it still has the most contiguous time zones: from Magadan Time UTC+11 to Kaliningrad UTC+2.

Since 1949, China is the largest country with only one time zone (UTC+08). China also has the widest spanning time zone. Conse-quence is also that the largest time gap along a political border, is the 3.5 hours along the border of China (UTC+08) and Afghanistan (UTC+0430).

There are 22 places where three or more time zones meet, for instance at the tri-coun-try border of Finland, Norway and Russia. 28 countries have such triple points, with China being the most present (in 13 of the 22 tri-ple points). Then come India (7), Russia, India and Afghanistan (4).

4 Artist‘s conception of fi nished Abraj Al-Bait Towers at nightPhoto credit: Wikipedia

4 Time ball at the Greenwich ObservatoryPhoto credit: ChrisO

Any given calendar date exists at some point on the globe during 50 hours.

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^ Controller trying to understand what they here

Photo: Raphael Reca

Charlie‘s Column

35 THE CONTROLLER

Duct Tape (Continuing story)

^̂̂

Overheard on the R/T

One Plus One TWR: LineAir123 taxi via Kilo, Park on gate F2Pilot: Roger Kilo F3TWR: Negative F2Pilot: Roger F3TWR: negative F2, Foxtrot 2, one plus one!Pilot: Ah Roger, one plus one: Foxtrot 11!

Injured BirdPilot vacating runway: Ground, we’re vacat-ing, but I think we hit a seagull about 100m south of intersection A1. It’s wounded.ATC: Roger, we’ll send an ambulance. In the meantime taxi to Gate F3.

Controlling UAVsAfghanistan is currently the world’s play-ground for various types of Unmanned Aer-ial Vehicles – UAV’s. As the following stories show, the ‘mileage’ on these things varies…

After the link between the ground station and a UAV went down…

UAV pilot: All of it.ATC: Say again?UAV pilot: I want all airspace.ATC: OK, initially climb to FL800 and call when established.UAV Pilot: I don’t think that’s going to work...ATC: Then you better figure out which air-space you need or I am putting you in a small corner.

In March this year the German Air Force had their brand new massive UAV - an Israeli-made Heron (see photo) – delivered in Kund-unz, Afghanistan. During the first test and acceptance flight, the UAV landed normally. But then, for an unknown reason, the aircraft went into full power, veered off the runway. It crashed into another one of their aircraft, a large C160 Transall transport aircraft. The parked C160 was seriously damaged and the UAV is apparently a write-off. As heads turned towards the UAV control cab, the UAV opera-tor shouted: “I didn’t touch anything“. Well, maybe that could’ve been the problem...

ATC to UAV Pilot: You’re leaving your as-signed airspace. Having problems?UAV pilot: We’ve lost the link, but the air-craft will maintain speed and heading until it is re-established.ATC: Well, can I suggest you get new bat-teries in that remote control of yours and get it back in your airspace fast before it hits a real airplane.

UAV pilot: We’re just off from runway 27.ATC: What airspace would you like today?

Charlie‘s Column

4 UAV HeronPhoto credit: Israeli Aircraft Industries.

4 Wing duct tape 4 Ash cloudAll photo credits: WWW

Ash Cloud After the Eyjafalafal Eyjadoyokjö volcano eruption in Iceland, ash clouds have everyone worried and on the lookout. After numerous re-ports of ‘suspicious’ or even ‘dan-gerous’ clouds, at least one pilot reported a ‘friendly’ one and even took a photo of it!

4 Piper repaired with duct tape

Herons, Bears and Clouds

You can really do anything with Duct tape. Repair a wing (below) or even a complete aeroplane (right). This particular piper was attacked by a bear in Alaska, looking for the lunchbox that had been left in the aircraft (first photo). Finding his airplane shredded, the pilot sent for a few boxes of duct tape, ‘repaired’ it and ferried it back home!

4 Piper bear attack

Documents

IFATCA The Controller - October 2010