Congestion in the skies above Europe; it's not getting better

rivegauche

An interesting report. Delays and CO2 emmissions are much higher than they need be yet Governments of Europe are pushing ahead with climate taxes which proves the default blunt instrument response to any issue is...you've guessed it... TAX.
https://www.aero.de/news-32040/Verspaetungen-Sommer-2019-so-schlimm-wie-2018.html

German text.

Imperfect Translation where "Lotsen" is translated as Pilots instead of Air Traffic Controllers here.

Beechwoodspark

They need to wind down the aviation industry across Europe and worldwide

Co2 emissions are way too high

Heavy taxation on the industry as a whole required. Including a blanket tax on all tickets for commercial flights.

Cookiemunster

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

They need to wind down the aviation industry across Europe and worldwide

Co2 emissions are way too high

Heavy taxation on the industry as a whole required. Including a blanket tax on all tickets for commercial flights.

2% of world wide emissions. There's a lot of low hanging fruit that could easily be tackled before the aviation industry. It's simply an easy target.

martingriff

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

They need to wind down the aviation industry across Europe and worldwide

Co2 emissions are way too high

Heavy taxation on the industry as a whole required. Including a blanket tax on all tickets for commercial flights.

So how are people meant to get long distances

Beechwoodspark

martingriff wrote: »

So how are people meant to get long distances

Solar powered passenger ships are the coming thing.

Also I am not at all against clean energy aviation which hopefully is in the pipeline too.

L1011

Beechwoodspark wrote: »

They need to wind down the aviation industry across Europe and worldwide

Co2 emissions are way too high

Heavy taxation on the industry as a whole required. Including a blanket tax on all tickets for commercial flights.

You were told this was off-topic in another thread already; its off-topic here too

Edit - quoted the wrong post. Point still stands

JohnnyFlash

Could they not get the planes to fly a small bit closer together? There’s a lot of sky up there. All seems very conservative.

Sharp MZ700

Zoom out on flightradar it'll open the eyes. I'm all for a greener world but yeah, taxing he bejaysus out of it is the default option of every government in the first world.
If it instigates alternative propulsion systems great, but airlines will just pass these charges onto the pax not pay them.

HTCOne

There's an enormous shortage of ATCOs across Europe. During the recession no hiring occurred, and then aviation went into It's largest, most rapid and most sustained boom ever. The ANSPs can't keep up. Karlsruhe, Reims, Marseille, Barcelona are just somw of the sectors that have been totally overwhelmed. There aren't enough controllers to open enough split sectors (lateral or vertical) to handle the traffic, so There's enormous regulation and pushing of traffic outward into adjacent ATC units, which has an enormous effect on them. Military exercises like the big one in France, something Tiger I think It's called, greatly exacerbate the problem.

Even O'Leary is calling for more controllers to be hired, and seeing as ultimately the airlines will be paying for their recruitment, training and salaries, it must be bad if he's acting up.

faoiarvok

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Could they not get the planes to fly a small bit closer together? There’s a lot of sky up there. All seems very conservative.

When flights are delayed to regulate airspace capacity, it’s less to do with physical space and more to do with controllers’ ability to safely handle the amount of aircraft (and airtime on the control frequency to issue clearances and instructions).

The simplest solution in these cases is to split the sector into smaller parts so more controllers can handle the same amount of airspace, but as HTCOne says, there’s a serious shortage of controllers everywhere, and no committed strategy/effort towards a solution to that problem.

trellheim

what is wrong with running more training courses and hiring more controllers ? Sounds like a bone (i.e. Captain Obvious) question I know , what am I missing with that statement

ED E

trellheim wrote: »

what is wrong with running more training courses and hiring more controllers ? Sounds like a bone (i.e. Captain Obvious) question I know , what am I missing with that statement

Its a highly skilled profession thats ripe to be automated out of existence. A lot of training for a potentially short career. Remember when automated delivery drones kick off they'll be laying the groundwork for an automated air navigation net.

martyc5674

ED E wrote: »

Its a highly skilled profession thats ripe to be automated out of existence. A lot of training for a potentially short career. Remember when automated delivery drones kick off they'll be laying the groundwork for an automated air navigation net.

Is that the reason though in reality?.. I’d be fairly sure any ATC recruitment drive would have tonnes of applicants. Maybe I’m way off the mark but it is surely still an appealing career choice for many.

HTCOne

martyc5674 wrote: »

Is that the reason though in reality?.. I’d be fairly sure any ATC recruitment drive would have tonnes of applicants. Maybe I’m way off the mark but it is surely still an appealing career choice for many.

It is, but it's a rare aptitude to have. The natural ability can't be learned, you either have it or you don't. The failure rate is quite high, the training takes a couple of years, and crucially, you have to take experienced operational controllers off the front lines to do the instructing/training/simulator work.

And as for automation, much cheaper having supervisory controllers on the ground telling giant drones where to go than having a pilot on every aircraft. That's the way the US military foes it.

Locker10a

As I’m reading this my previously on time flight is being held on the ground an extra 30 mins due to an ATC slot

HTCOne

Locker10a wrote: »

As I’m reading this my previously on time flight is being held on the ground an extra 30 mins due to an ATC slot

Computer says no by the sounds if it. Hopefully you'll get a better one shortly.

faoiarvok

ED E wrote: »

Its a highly skilled profession thats ripe to be automated out of existence. A lot of training for a potentially short career. Remember when automated delivery drones kick off they'll be laying the groundwork for an automated air navigation net.

There’s no shortage of applicants for the job, the pinch point is in how many new recruits ANSPs are willing to take on and train. It takes serious resources to train new personnel. Again HTCOne has beaten me to it pointing out that it’s not just money, but some of the valuable controllers currently working that need to be taken away from operations to train new recruits. ANSPs’ charges and therefore revenues are also regulated by Europe though, in agreement with the airlines, so it’s not as simple as just spending more, because for all the noise MOL makes, he’s probably not willing to front the cash to train more controllers (he’s already given out about how long it takes to train an ATCO despite having no working knowledge of what’s involved.)

Inquitus

My brother is currently training to be an ATC in the UK, he has one of his final Sim exams shortly, training seems to be the guts of 12 months. There were many thousands of applicants for a handful of positions. The pay is great once qualified, a degree is not required, and they don't discriminate on age as he is 40.

trellheim

[QUOTEThere’s no shortage of applicants for the job, the pinch point is in how many new recruits ANSPs are willing to take on and train. It takes serious resources to train new personnel.[/QUOTE]

On average they should know how what resources it does take to train a new recruit, though - and taking experienced hands away to train new classes applies in nearly every profession, so not a new thing. I wonder is there any benefit to centralised training though but thats a long look ahead. So if you know you need for example 20 controllers in the next 2 years, and it takes a year to train them, then why arent they recruiting nearly constantly . Thats what I am missing ?

marketty

Inquitus wrote:

My brother is currently training to be an ATC in the UK, he has one of his final Sim exams shortly, training seems to be the guts of 12 months. There were many thousands of applicants for a handful of positions. The pay is great once qualified, a degree is not required, and they don't discriminate on age as he is 40.

This is true for the UK, but Eurocontrol for example don't take new recruits over 25. Considering most people would probably complete college before pursuing this career, that leaves a fairly narrow recruitment window of 22-25. The IAA don't have this age restriction, but unlike the UK and Eurocontrol they don't pay their students, so it's only open to those who can afford to have no income for a couple of years. This wasn't always the case, and you would imagine that since there seems to be agreement that you either naturally have the aptitude or you don't, recruiting across a wider range of ages and socio-economic backgrounds would be more productive. Having said that, paying students and allowing older candidates hasn't solved the problem in the UK either, which I believe is probably exasperated by the fragmentation of the UK ATC services among several private companies.

DubDani

Most likely solution (beside taxation) is the banning of ultra short haul flights under a certain amount of miles. Especially in Central Europe using trains is oftem a viable alternative, even on medium distance routes.

rivegauche

DubDani wrote: »

Most likely solution (beside taxation) is the banning of ultra short haul flights under a certain amount of miles. Especially in Central Europe using trains is oftem a viable alternative, even on medium distance routes.

At a multi-runway airport they're not getting in anyone's way once they get much beyond the boundary of the airport as they fly lower.
An unpressurized propellor propelled plane would be much more environmentally friendly than the train as no infrastructure was "built" for it.

Inquitus

marketty wrote: »

This is true for the UK, but Eurocontrol for example don't take new recruits over 25. Considering most people would probably complete college before pursuing this career, that leaves a fairly narrow recruitment window of 22-25. The IAA don't have this age restriction, but unlike the UK and Eurocontrol they don't pay their students, so it's only open to those who can afford to have no income for a couple of years. This wasn't always the case, and you would imagine that since there seems to be agreement that you either naturally have the aptitude or you don't, recruiting across a wider range of ages and socio-economic backgrounds would be more productive. Having said that, paying students and allowing older candidates hasn't solved the problem in the UK either, which I believe is probably exasperated by the fragmentation of the UK ATC services among several private companies.

True, but anyone Irish can apply to UK ATC I would think with the CTA and all the reciprocal rights?

roadmaster

I remember a couple of years ago watching a show on euronews about congested skies. The jist of the program was that the flight paths that airlines where based on historical flight patterns and that the Eu wanted to introduce what was essentially as the crow flies flight paths . Are they still working on this or did the idea ever gain traction?

faoiarvok

roadmaster wrote: »

I remember a couple of years ago watching a show on euronews about congested skies. The jist of the program was that the flight paths that airlines where based on historical flight patterns and that the Eu wanted to introduce what was essentially as the crow flies flight paths . Are they still working on this or did the idea ever gain traction?

Most countries still have airspace reserved for military use that they’re reluctant to give away. Free route airspace exists in Irish controlled airspace and I think Austria and Hungary.

marketty

Inquitus wrote:

True, but anyone Irish can apply to UK ATC I would think with the CTA and all the reciprocal rights?

I'm sure they can, but you have the question of why the UK ATC services struggle with personnel when they have what looks like a better recruitment package? There's more going on there, as I said I suspect the splitting of the system across several providers probably causes more issues than it solves.

Locker10a

marketty wrote: »

I'm sure they can, but you have the question of why the UK ATC services struggle with personnel when they have what looks like a better recruitment package? There's more going on there, as I said I suspect the splitting of the system across several providers probably causes more issues than it solves.

They pay minimum wage during training in the U.K. and their new pension scheme wouldn’t be as good as others/older system.

AnRothar

There are 2 types of congestion in aviation in Europe.
In the air and on the ground.


Congestion in the air occurs when 2 aircraft wish to occupy the same volume of airspace at the same time.
Congestion on the ground occurs when 2 aircraft want to occupy the same runway at the same time.
In both scenarios one aircraft must get some form of delay.
Slot/Different Level etc.

roadmaster wrote: »

Eu wanted to introduce what was essentially as the crow flies flight paths . Are they still working on this or did the idea ever gain traction?

Free route airspace exists in Irish controlled airspace and I think Austria and Hungary.

Free Route Airspace (FRA) exists across all the Upper Airspace in Europe as per the mandate.


FRA is not the panacea that people think.

In a nutshell aircraft no longer fly from radio beacon to radio beacon but fly from Nav-point to Nav-point.
Usually the final point is one from which an aircraft can make an approach to the Runway.


Congestion in the Upper airspace surprise surprise mainly occurs over SE England/Belgium/Holland/Germany/France.
How does a crow fly from London to Frankfurt?


Congestion in the Lower airspace occurs around the busy airports.

To manage the congestion in BOTH Upper & Lower airspace Europe has issued guidance this summer on flight plan adherence.
Simply put, fly exactly what you plan in terms of departure time/levels/speeds/points.

I suspect the splitting of the system across several providers probably causes more issues than it solves.

Incorrect, the issue mainly revolves around capacity.
Simply put there is a natural limit on the number of aircraft that will fit safely in a given volume of airspace.


Modern aircraft tend to fly higher so VHF line of sight becomes an increasing issue.
Data-link was supposed to fix the frequency congestion that but the jury is out.

Most countries still have airspace reserved for military use that they’re reluctant to give away

This is not as big an issue any more.
Flexible Use of Airspace (FUA) concept covers this.
Military no longer block chunks of airspace for days at a time.

They will coordinate the duration and cede the airspace once they are no longer using it.



During the downturn Europe told the service providers to cut their costs.
Which they did using the simple tactic of not replacing staff as they retired.
Europe has extended the requirement for the service providers to keep cutting their costs until 2023.

Remembering the cost-cutting requirement.
There was a fear that the recovery was temporary and they would be left with surplus staff.
Low volume and wait and see.

Which has meant that many have insufficient staff to release staff to train new staff.
Overtime, once a rarity is now common place.

why the UK ATC services struggle with personnel when they have what looks like a better recruitment package? There's more going on there

H24/365

Almost all have staff shortages, an issue is not "not getting candidates" but "not getting SUITABLE candidates".

marketty

AnRothar wrote:

Almost all have staff shortages, an issue is not "not getting candidates" but "not getting SUITABLE candidates".

I agree, but why are suitable candidates so hard to find/keep? It's a bit like the mythical pilot shortages that are regularly mentioned. There's no shortage of pilots/wannabes, from an airlines point of view there's a shortage of people willing to self fund training then fly for feck all on crap contracts. A refusal to invest in people across the industry, pilots, atc and maintenance staff is ultimately what causes these shortages, the same as many industries.

AnRothar

marketty wrote: »

why are suitable candidates so hard to find/keep? There's no shortage of pilots/wannabes,

Not everyone has the aptitude.
Not everyone has the interpersonal skills.
Some do very well in training but fail in the live environment.

Recruitment takes what it hopes are the best of what apply.
However if the only means of applying is a version of the "Masonic Handshake" then you may have excluded many candidates.


The "ideal candidate" unfortunately is also "ideal" for a number of other roles.
They can get as much if not more without working nights/weekends elsewhere.

A refusal to invest

Historically ATC operated on a "cost recovery" basis.
No longer.


ATC is a regulated industry where the regulator (Europe) has issued the following instructions.
CUT COSTS
Grow safety.
Increase capacity.
Reduce greenhouse emissions.


The accountants and politicians call the shots.
Politicians want glitzy solutions which will make them look good.
The accountants want to spend nothing on it.

There was a belief that technology was the solution and they created a program on technological innovation called SESAR.
Millions of € later and the court of auditors has said Meah.


It created some innovation but the airlines and others are reluctant to invest in some of the equipment as the perceived returns are not worth it.
There are other elements that are years away from been ready for widespread use.


Regarding

people willing to self fund training

Many airlines have realized that this model gives them no control over many aspects of candidate selection.
Some have moved back to sponsoring candidates as this way THEY chose the applicants they want.

faoiarvok

AnRothar wrote: »

Free Route Airspace (FRA) exists across all the Upper Airspace in Europe as per the mandate.

Eurocontrol doesn’t agree with you there:

We expect that most of Europe's airspace will have implemented FRA by the end of 2022

AnRothar wrote: »

In a nutshell aircraft no longer fly from radio beacon to radio beacon but fly from Nav-point to Nav-point

Properly implemented, FRA should mean allowing operators to file direct from airspace entry to exit, without having to follow airways, not just replacing navaids with waypoints.

AnRothar wrote: »

Modern aircraft tend to fly higher so VHF line of sight becomes an increasing issue.

Higher aircraft are easier to reach, not harder. The range of their line of sight is increased just as the horizon appears further away when you stand on a mountain.

Edit: Missed your point on this part, get what you were saying now from notharrypotter’s clarification below.

AnRothar wrote: »

This is not as big an issue any more.
Flexible Use of Airspace (FUA) concept covers this.
Military no longer block chunks of airspace for days at a time.

They will coordinate the duration and cede the airspace once they are no longer using it.

That’s certainly the concept, but you just have to look at how the UK military NOTAM huge chunks of airspace active during business hours Mon-Fri on the off chance they might want to use it, to see that the reality doesn’t match the concept. Giving the airspace back early when they decide they won’t be using it is great obviously, but it kind of clashes with Eurocontrol’s push for filed FPL adherence, when all the aircraft who were forced to file around active military airspace now take direct routes across it.

notharrypotter

faoiarvok wrote: »

Higher aircraft are easier to reach, not harder. The range of their line of sight is increased just as the horizon appears further away when you stand on a mountain.

VHF frequencies are protected by not been reused where there is a danger of overlap by an aircraft at extreme range with 2 ATS units.
So the higher you fly the further apart this buffer must become.
Only certain frequencies are available for ATS use.
Each ATS unit will have a finite number of frequencies from which they can use.

faoiarvok

notharrypotter wrote: »

VHF frequencies are protected by not been reused where there is a danger of overlap by an aircraft at extreme range with 2 ATS units.
So the higher you fly the further apart this buffer must become.
Only certain frequencies are available for ATS use.
Each ATS unit will have a finite number of frequencies from which they can use.

That’s surely not likely to be a concern on a par with staffing though is it, especially with 8.33kHz spacing?

Chris_5339762

Wasn't Free Route Airspace the reason for a whole pile of French strikes not too long ago? Didn't they really lose the plot?

AnRothar

faoiarvok wrote: »

That’s surely not likely to be a concern on a par with staffing though is it, especially with 8.33kHz spacing?

To open a sector you need 2 things, staff and a frequency.
There is a limit in terms of the number of aircraft that can be safely handled by a sector.
It is limited by size/complexity and the number of aircraft on the frequency.
Data-link was intended to reduce much of the routine transmissions by using a fixed message set.
Has not been as successful as hoped.


So more aircraft need more sectors which in turn need more frequencies.

Wasn't Free Route Airspace the reason for a whole pile of French strikes not too long ago

No.

HTCOne

Ah yes CPDLC. Works great for automatic stuff like squawk assignment, but they thought I'd be able to plan, evaluate and assign 2 totally independent clearances simultaneously by voice and CPDLC. Maybe I'm a bit slow but my brain isn't capable of doing that in a complex sector.

"Datalink will relieve a congested frequency, increasing efficiency"...completely misses the fact that when the frequency is busy you don't have the spare brain power to use datalink much.

arccosh

marketty wrote: »

. Having said that, paying students and allowing older candidates hasn't solved the problem in the UK either, which I believe is probably exasperated by the fragmentation of the UK ATC services among several private companies.

Not necessarily, all training is standard and regulated by the CAA... obviously NATS is the main training source, but the smaller airport groups train their own (or send to NATS to train).



Problem is, they weren't allowed hire for a number of years, and the training program from student to qualified controller was taking nearly 3 years to complete (There were some stories of up to 4 or 5 years due to controllers not being released to train students so they were left in limbo until they could get someone to rate them). Throw this in with an existing controller shortage and a controller demographic of 30-40% of people close to retirement age (55 and with a DB pension) and you have yourself a bit of a manpower nightmare.


This was about 3-4 years back, since then the hiring and training has been streamlined (they reackon they can get a controller from apllication to controlling planes in just under 2 years), but obviously you won't see the fruits of this for another year or two.

AnRothar

but the smaller airport groups train their own

All training must be done by a certified training organization in compliance with the above regulations.
Apart from NATS there used to be 2 other organizations in the UK that did private training but not sure how many are left.

all training is standard and regulated by the CAA

All training must comply with EU Regulation.
From October all the UK CAA will do is replace the words EASA with UK CAA.


For a small airport (relatively speaking) recruitment is ad-hoc and expensive unless part of a larger ANSP.

Get it wrong and you have wasted the slot and are a year or more behind again.



Usually they try to poach from elsewhere.

Problem is, they weren't allowed hire for a number of years, and the training program from student to qualified controller was taking nearly 3 years to complete (There were some stories of up to 4 or 5 years due to controllers not being released to train students so they were left in limbo until they could get someone to rate them). Throw this in with an existing controller shortage and a controller demographic of 30-40% of people close to retirement age (55 and with a DB pension) and you have yourself a bit of a manpower nightmare.

I presume this is more UK specific?

arccosh

AnRothar wrote: »

All training must be done by a certified training organization in compliance with the above regulations.
Apart from NATS there used to be 2 other organizations in the UK that did private training but not sure how many are left.



All training must comply with EU Regulation.
From October all the UK CAA will do is replace the words EASA with UK CAA.


For a small airport (relatively speaking) recruitment is ad-hoc and expensive unless part of a larger ANSP.

Get it wrong and you have wasted the slot and are a year or more behind again.

Usually they try to poach from elsewhere.


I presume this is more UK specific?

Off the top of my head, Manchester Airport Group, IOM Airport group, Jersey Port Authority, all do some training internally, but do need to ship them off for some ratings (NATS ?) ... ANS who are part owned by DFS do internal training of ATCO's (not sure if they get sent to Germany).

Not to mention cross training candidates from the Navy and RAF.



You can look at it either way... you are rated by the CAA currently, who work under EU regulation .... even though they break away, EASA will still govern to a certain extent.


Also, there are different grades of controllers. For example in the UK, the toughest job is London Terminal Airspace control.. not all controllers are qualified to work on that airspace, and some will never be.



But that doesn't stop you from being a really good upper airspace controller, or aerodrome controller. So an airport hiring and training a controller for airport ops, once they pass their entry tests and show interest, probably have the same risk as hiring someone else in the company.



Whereas say NATS for example...they may need a requirement for a load of TC controllers, you could pass all the entry tests and find out half way through training you're not up for the job (although the newer tests are designed to try stop this from happening), which yes, is a risk.



And yes,all of the previous is UK specific, as the quote was UK specific.