Airport.

[Amadeus]

4 minutes ago, Derek Flint said:

The think outside the box solution would be to pipe area control to Liverpool. It worked when Doncaster (also owned by Peel) was open I understand.

That would then leave approach only to staff. Surely there's enough to cover that?

There's clearly a flaw to this option. I'm here to be educated 

It probably make sense and saves costs, which is why we’re not doing it. Can’t inflate your CV that way either. 

[madmanxpilot]

10 minutes ago, Derek Flint said:

The think outside the box solution would be to pipe area control to Liverpool. It worked when Doncaster (also owned by Peel) was open I understand.

That would then leave approach only to staff. Surely there's enough to cover that?

There's clearly a flaw to this option. I'm here to be educated 

Correct re Donny.

It’s been spoken of as an option here, but there are issues with it. I’m sure someone more au fait with the technicalities than me will explain.

Approach is radar btw - I think you meant to say tower.

[gerremonside]

37 minutes ago, Derek Flint said:

The think outside the box solution would be to pipe area control to Liverpool. It worked when Doncaster (also owned by Peel) was open I understand.

That would then leave approach only to staff. Surely there's enough to cover that?

There's clearly a flaw to this option. I'm here to be educated 

Ronaldsway does not do area control. 

It does however do approach control using radar. It may be feasible to accomplish approach radar from a remote unit but to do so may, if a long term plan reduce numbers needed to man the aerodrome ATC unit. In the short term it doesn't however as any remote unit would need training in local procedures ( these would remain wherever the operatives sit). 

Another issue would be the coordination between the aerodrome and approach staff, beating in mind the approach would have little local knowledge. That is in itself a problem at a place which suffers many vagaries of weather. 

Centralisation of ATC approach services was a project our current director advocated in his previous job, that project did not succeed. 

[Hairy Poppins]

Could we just try and recruit the right number of ATCOs?

[WTF]

1 minute ago, Hairy Poppins said:

Could we just try and recruit the right number of ATCOs?

hang on now.

[madmanxpilot]

1 minute ago, Hairy Poppins said:

Could we just try and recruit the right number of ATCOs?

That would be good.
 

They should try a little harder to keep them too.

[daisy]

7 minutes ago, Hairy Poppins said:

Could we just try and recruit the right number of ATCOs?

And keep OHR out of the interviews .. lets get people that want to do the job, that could do the job rather than those that can answer HR questions with the right HR buzzwords

[asitis]

There's more sense spoken on here than in the entire top corridor at the airport !

[Derek Flint]

58 minutes ago, madmanxpilot said:

Correct re Donny.

It’s been spoken of as an option here, but there are issues with it. I’m sure someone more au fait with the technicalities than me will explain.

Approach is radar btw - I think you meant to say tower.

Thank you

31 minutes ago, gerremonside said:

Ronaldsway does not do area control. 

It does however do approach control using radar. It may be feasible to accomplish approach radar from a remote unit but to do so may, if a long term plan reduce numbers needed to man the aerodrome ATC unit. In the short term it doesn't however as any remote unit would need training in local procedures ( these would remain wherever the operatives sit). 

Another issue would be the coordination between the aerodrome and approach staff, beating in mind the approach would have little local knowledge. That is in itself a problem at a place which suffers many vagaries of weather. 

Centralisation of ATC approach services was a project our current director advocated in his previous job, that project did not succeed. 

Modern comms should male this simple enough and increase the number of approach controllers available? 

I understand that the LCY tower is actually virtual? 

[Gordonzola]

On 8/21/2024 at 9:33 PM, madmanxpilot said:

As others have said, a lot of the blame for our current shortage of ATCOs can be apportioned to the ATCO recruitment policies put in place before the current management took up post. Many of the ATCOs in post could see what was happening and tried to tell those in power at the time what would happen.They were ignored and we now find ourselves with insufficient qualified ATCOs to run the airport. Covid didn’t help either.

However, retention is a significant issue at the moment. We should be doing everything we can to keep the staff we’ve got. However, fully qualified ATCOs have left within the last couple of years. I know for a fact that more than one cited the current ATC management as the reason why they have decided to move on.

Thanks for that info Madmanxpilot. So if I’m not mistaken the following is true 

A) Previous management have not recruited correctly leading to the staff shortage

and that’s compounded by

B) The ATC manager is driving the few remaining staff Ronaldsway has to actually leave?

Surely the government needs to do something about the fox in the hen house before there’s no one left to lay any eggs?

It does make me wonder if Gareth Cobb has realised this is the situation and told the Government he needs the manager gone but hasn’t been backed by them. We all know that they don’t like to get rid of their precious managers. If they won’t help him fix the problem maybe that’s why he’s hightailing it out of here.

[WTF]

47 minutes ago, Gordonzola said:

 

B) The ATC manager is driving the few remaining staff Ronaldsway has to actually leave?

 

military command styles and attitudes don't often transfer well to civilian roles.

[Twitch]

1 minute ago, WTF said:

military command styles and attitudes don't often transfer well to civilian roles.

Nobody tell Alf Cannan..

[Utah 01]

9 minutes ago, WTF said:

military command styles and attitudes don't often transfer well to civilian roles

I'll correct the end of that statement - 'civilian attitudes'.

As for our learned lawyer's earlier comment, 'command' and 'management' have been indivisible in the Armed Forces and certainly 'man management' is something (and there will always be exceptions) is something the Forces excel at.

[Hairy Poppins]

If staff retention is an issue then it gives the impression that the DOI is perhaps not a fit and proper body to be running such a critical piece of infrastructure. 

Perhaps rather than looking to try and outsource any or all of the day to day operations of ATC, we should be looking to outsource the management? 

Could NATS be persuaded to take on the running of Ronaldsway Tower? I believe they operate several towers at UK airports? So would seem a safe and proper bet to run IOM ATC. 

The DOI approach to managing ATC seems to be more Alton Towers than control tower. 

 

ETA; whatver happened to that CAA report that raised serious concerns about the management of IOM Airport? I don't remember ever seeing an outcome. 

Edited August 22 by Hairy Poppins

[Roger Mexico]

39 minutes ago, Gordonzola said:

[...] So if I’m not mistaken the following is true 

A) Previous management have not recruited correctly leading to the staff shortage

and that’s compounded by

B) The ATC manager is driving the few remaining staff Ronaldsway has to actually leave?

Surely the government needs to do something about the fox in the hen house before there’s no one left to lay any eggs?

It does make me wonder if Gareth Cobb has realised this is the situation and told the Government he needs the manager gone but hasn’t been backed by them. We all know that they don’t like to get rid of their precious managers. If they won’t help him fix the problem maybe that’s why he’s hightailing it out of here.

From when Cobb arrived (and possibly even earlier) there were efforts made to recruit both experienced ATCOs (who still need to train to local conditions) and also recruit local students to train from scratch.  They did get up to near nominal strength in June 2023, but that would only happen properly if there were no more retirements or resignations and all the students got all their qualifications and all the newbies passed their local training.  So efforts were certainly being made to tackle the problem on the recruitment side.  But retention is another issue.

I could well see this being the sort of thing that might cause Cobb to look around  elsewhere, though I doubt it was the only issue.