Airport.

[Numbnuts]

14 minutes ago, NoTailT said:

How many Gov departments are currently without a properly functioning CEO? I count at least 2, possibly 3.

All of them.  You'd  question have they ever been functioning as they should .

Edited April 12, 2022 by Numbnuts

[Ringy Rose]

5 hours ago, NoTailT said:

But to be fair, London City has very difficult issues to deal with which IOM doesn't.

 

4 hours ago, Andy Onchan said:

We're not LCY with anywhere near the number of flights to control.

The bulk of the equipment cost was the HD cameras at LCY, and the equipment at Swanwick. All of which is the same regardless of flight numbers.

It's not quite the same as hooking up a webcam and doing it over Zoom, even if that shitty Kevin Bacon mobile phone advert pretends otherwise.

@gerremonsideexplains it best.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Ringy Rose

[Ringy Rose]

 

4 hours ago, gerremonside said:

government departments were asked to make savings, one of the the first things airport management did to try to do so so was enforce a policy of non replacement of staff in air traffic control when they retired or moved

Of course they did, it's an easy win.

And, let's be honest, "cutting the Civil Service headcount" is something that is routinely celebrated on here.

Edited April 12, 2022 by Ringy Rose

[The Old Git]

16 hours ago, NoTailT said:

Regularly dealing with yanks you pick up some dialect...

Except it’s a Middle English word.

[Andy Onchan]

23 hours ago, gerremonside said:

Sadly it's not quite so easy. Even if there was the the political will or management impetus to bring in agency staff, any controller brought in who had all the necessary qualifications to control the type of traffic the Isle of Man handles, (which means aerodrome approach and approach radar qualifications) would need to validate locally to operate solo and start to  ease the problem. This validation process would take an absolute minimum of six months. 

The big issue here is is that air traffic control qualification takes a long time. For each of the above qualifications to go from untrained to fully trained is around a year each, so around 3 years to train each fully qualified controller. 

When the VAT bombshell hit around 15 years ago, and government departments were asked to make savings, one of the the first things airport management did to try to do so so was enforce a policy of non replacement of staff in air traffic control when they retired or moved. So for many years there was no recruitment or replacement of ATC staff. This failed to take into account the lead in training time as stated above, and although it saved a hefty wadge of salary cash in the short term, it has had a direct effect on the crisis in staffing that is being seen today. 

This policy of non replacement was only reversed towards the end of the last decade, and as a result there are trainees in the system who cannot complete their validation because there simply wasn't sufficient traffic throughout the covid crisis to justify them having been adequately trained and tested. This has also been exacerbated by why some of the recruited trainees leaving post because of failure to progress. 

It's worth noting that the covid crisis has also masked the problem because the shortage existed pre COVID, and in fact when covid came along it was quite fortuitous as airport closures became commonplace which meant that the problem did not manifest until a full timetable was resumed recently.

To summarise, it is a perfect storm, one that could have been predicted and indeed was by members of the team who raised it with management as far back as 2006. But unfortunately short-term recruitment of agency staff would no more help,  than would getting through the trainees who are already  in the system. The team within air traffic control hot trying as hard as possible to get the trainees through in as quick time as possible commensurate with safety.

But also to be fair are the Isle of Man does have other issues to deal with the London city doesn't. Ronaldsway provides own approach control and approach radar control service. At London City these are provided by the swanwick control centre in Hampshire. 

Also, operating ronaldsway as a remote tower project would take many lead in years of infrastructure procurement, purchase and set up,  and also significant regulatory approval. Regulatory approval has after a long time been granted for London City but if the remote facility were to fail it would be easy to quickly repopulate the on-site tower - I am sure this has been a significant condition of the approval. No such easy contingency will be available if Ronaldsway were to go to remote tower operation as presumably the controllers would by definition be across the water. Cost would not really be the barrier, satisfying the regulator that it was a safe practice would be a far greater issue. Also the issue of outsourcing of approach and radar services to another agency would be necessary. 

Some interesting comments, particularly about the history and the way that both our elected and executive have very little understanding of and for long term strategic thinking/planning when it comes to the vital services that we rely on for island life. 

Strategy is a word freely used in CS speak. Nothing, it seems, could be further from the truth in this and many other instances.

What most folk want to know is what the answers are to these issues. We should not rule out the technology available to us.

[dreamon]

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/airport-very-close-to-having-new-director/

Let's hope, just for once, that they are going to appoint someone who actually knows something about airports!

Or, is that asking too much?

[Ringy Rose]

9 hours ago, Andy Onchan said:

Nothing, it seems, could be further from the truth in this and many other instances.

The rush to cut headcount and costs came from the politicians.  And, of course, if you set a target based on headcount and budget cuts, you lose the low-hanging fruit first.  

 

9 hours ago, Andy Onchan said:

What most folk want to know is what the answers are to these issues. We should not rule out the technology available to us.

The answer, as always, is increasing headcount, which involves training costs and paying salaries that will attract people to the island.

But then you get the whingers on here bleating about how the CS is getting bloated.  They may even mention "gold plated pensions", seemingly not noting the fact that something that is "gold plated" is actually a fundamentally worthless metal with a minuscule veneer of gold over the top of it.

Remote ATC doesn't solve staffing costs, either; you need to pay controllers regardless of whether they are sat here or sat in Swanwick.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Ringy Rose

[ellanvannin2010]

8 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

The rush to cut headcount and costs came from the politicians.  And, of course, if you set a target based on headcount and budget cuts, you lose the low-hanging fruit first.  

 

The answer, as always, is increasing headcount, which involves training costs and paying salaries that will attract people to the island.

But then you get the whingers on here bleating about how the CS is getting bloated.  They may even mention "gold plated pensions", seemingly not noting the fact that something that is "gold plated" is actually a fundamentally worthless metal with a minuscule veneer of gold over the top of it.

Remote ATC doesn't solve staffing costs, either; you need to pay controllers regardless of whether they are sat here or sat in Swanwick.

But they have tended to get rid of the "doers" and kept or increased the administrators or managers.

If the airport has no ATC personnel it closes, no Deputy Airport Director it stays open

Edited April 13, 2022 by ellanvannin2010

[Ringy Rose]

5 minutes ago, ellanvannin2010 said:

But they have tended to get rid of the "doers" and kept or increased the administrators or managers.

The "doers" retired or moved to new jobs, the senior management didn't.  It's not just the airport, the harbour lost a lot of experienced harbour masters because they also couldn't stand Ann Reynolds and she didn't bother replacing them when they went.

The cheapest and easiest way of cutting headcount and costs is not to replace staff when they leave.  Especially when, as with ATC, new staff bring large training costs with them.

You had Phil Gawne swinging his dick back in 2015 because the DOI saved £4m by losing 168 posts.  I wonder why certain parts of the DOI might now be short staffed?  Best call Colombo, it's a real mystery.

Edited April 13, 2022 by Ringy Rose

[ellanvannin2010]

10 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

The "doers" retired or moved to new jobs, the senior management didn't. 

The cheapest and easiest way of cutting headcount and costs is not to replace staff when they leave.  Especially when, as with ATC, new staff bring large training costs with them.

You had Phil Gawne swinging his dick back in 2015 because the DOI saved £4m by losing 168 posts.  I wonder why certain parts of the DOI might now be short staffed?  Best call Colombo, it's a real mystery.

Its a well known joke but this seemed very familiar when I worked in IOM Govt

https://maaw.info/AnOldJokeOnAmericanManagement.htm

Edited April 13, 2022 by ellanvannin2010

[Ringy Rose]

7 minutes ago, ellanvannin2010 said:

Its a well known joke but this seemed very familiar when I worked in IOM Govt

More than an element of truth in it.

Those with a cushy job didn't retire and didn't leave, because they knew they had a cushy job.  Those who didn't have a cushy job- because they were grafting- increasingly got pissed off and left.

The politicians were demanding headcount cuts.  Do you a) spend a lot of time and money on making those with cushy jobs redundant or do you b) simply not replace departees?  This isn't just a government issue either, all businesses do it; my experience of the private sector is, if anything, far worse than IOMG.  The stories I hear from Isle of Man Bank and Zurich Insurance, for instance...

Edited April 13, 2022 by Ringy Rose

[NoTailT]

Seems London City might get delayed.

Spoke to a Loganair ATR pilot pal of mine today. City flight training cancelled for 3rd time today. They're just sat twiddling their thumbs. Need currency training flights under their wings before it can be flown.

[Andy Onchan]

10 hours ago, Ringy Rose said:

The rush to cut headcount and costs came from the politicians.  And, of course, if you set a target based on headcount and budget cuts, you lose the low-hanging fruit first.  

 

The answer, as always, is increasing headcount, which involves training costs and paying salaries that will attract people to the island.

But then you get the whingers on here bleating about how the CS is getting bloated.  They may even mention "gold plated pensions", seemingly not noting the fact that something that is "gold plated" is actually a fundamentally worthless metal with a minuscule veneer of gold over the top of it.

Remote ATC doesn't solve staffing costs, either; you need to pay controllers regardless of whether they are sat here or sat in Swanwick.

You're missing the point. This is not just about cost, this is about keeping up with the technology that already exists, is in use and is growing. Using RATC provides 24/7 and is used as and when required. IOM airport won't have to worry about tea breaks, peaks in traffic or having to keep ATC back for another hour at the end of the day to direct inbound and outbound traffic. They don't need to worry about training, that's the RATC's problem not ours. And bfore you might want to throw Issues like approach/departures up they can be dealt with.

I'll leave this with you: https://www.hial.co.uk/atms/air-traffic-management-strategy
We should be hanging on to the coat tails of this project.

And this: https://avinor.no/en/avinor-air-navigations-services/services/remote-towers

We're going to get left behind.

[Derek Flint]

Doesn’t Doncaster get operated remotely by Liverpool?

[asitis]

As it took 7 years to get an Italian radar system approved for use, we would all probably be tele transporting, a la Star Trek, before this got off the ground 😄