Air traffic controllers find little to celebrate on international day

Airservices Australia will mark international air traffic controllers day on Thursday, at a time when morale is in the doldrums.

Airservices Australia is marking International Air Traffic Controllers’ day on Thursday, at a time when its workforce is struggling with low morale due to ongoing staffing challenges.

Results of recent staff engagement surveys shared with The Australian marked Airservices very poorly for work-life balance and recognition, and only 6 per cent of controllers said they felt “excited about their future”.

One work group said there had been no action since the last people engagement survey, and only 14 per cent felt they had the resources and capacity to do their job well.

Another group agreed they were doing “meaningful work” that contributed to the organisation’s success, but only 25 per cent felt they could speak freely without fear of negative consequences.

National secretary of the air traffic controllers’ union Civil Air Peter McGuane said members would find little to celebrate on Thursday.

Mr McGuane said the introduction of new programs and technology meant controllers were in a constant state of flux and staff numbers remained insufficient in some areas.

As a result, there was an increasing reliance on airspace closures and TIBA declarations – where pilots have to talk to each other to ascertain the position of aircraft.

“I couldn’t describe it as unsafe because it is an approved operating procedure,” said Mr McGuane of the sort of measures being used in the event of insufficient control tower staff.

“But it’s not best practice to be closing airspace and not having ATC supervision in that airspace.”

Airservices is celebrating international air traffic controllers day at a time when its workforce is struggling to keep airspace open, particularly in regional areas due to staffing challenges.

A statement from Airservices Australia said they employed more than 900 air traffic controllers to “fully staff the air traffic management system” and there were a further 65 in training.

Acting chief communications officer Dominique Lamb said staffing issues were sorting themselves out as instances of Covid and flu declined, and employee engagement improving.

“We have more air traffic controllers than required, we’re consistently audited by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and we are safe, and we continue to be so,” Ms Lamb said.

“Overall our employee engagement survey has shown an improvement in our employee engagement, in fact I think it’s up around the 64 per cent mark and we know that this is a journey for Airservices and we continue to work with our staff to improve everything across the business.”

Mr McGuane said they did not dispute the numbers, but the fact was they were not deployed in the right places, resulting in an excessive reliance on overtime.

“We need to know the breakdown of how those numbers are captured,” he said.

“What is the number of operational staff that are supervising the airspace, that is active controllers as opposed to other categories of staff that may have an ATC classification but aren’t being used in active duty.”

Ms Lamb said their controllers were “among the world’s best, managing the safe and orderly flow of aircraft into, out of, and between airports throughout Australia”.

“Airservices’ air traffic controllers are the unsung heroes who safely and efficiently guide an average of 3800 planes every day in perfect harmony, protecting both the Australian travelling public and our customer airlines,” said Ms Lamb.

“Airservices is proud of its world-class safety record and safety-first culture.”

Mr McGuane said it was good that Airservices was recognising the professionalism of the air traffic control community on their international day.

“But there are fundamental issues that need to be addressed, staffing being the core issue,” he said.

Airservices was also in conflict with another part of its workforce, with airport fire and rescue teams starting to vote in a protected industrial action ballot this week.

If the 776 firefighters vote in favour of strikes, airports were likely to see international and domestic airlines cancel flights rather than land without emergency support on hand.

A result from the ballot was expected early next month.