IoM Airport director Gary Cobb
Airport director warns of further flight disruption at Ronaldsway as issues remain over staff shortages and training in air traffic control
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00:00 I'm here with Gary Cobb, Airport Director. We're here to talk about the issues at air
00:07 traffic control, an issue that is probably close to heart to many passengers who've used
00:14 the airport in recent months. It was a huge issue last summer, wasn't it, with staffing
00:20 at air traffic control and over the winter it seems to have eased, but just tell me what
00:24 the situation is.
00:25 Yeah, so since August of last year we've been down to two breaks a day, so those two breaks
00:31 a day have continued over the winter. Unfortunately, this will probably continue quite far into
00:37 the coming year as our air traffic control is trained. In that time we've successfully
00:42 recruited three students who are in the process of going to college to do some of their study
00:49 and we've recruited three full-time experienced ACCOs and again they're in their training
00:57 pipeline, but again we're unlikely to see some of them validate until at least at the
01:02 end of this year, if not into next year. During that time we've also been training some of
01:06 the students that were with us from last year and again I'm hoping that some of those will
01:10 validate this year, but it is now just a function of air traffic control is going through their
01:16 training in order to pass all the qualifications they require to be fully validated air traffic
01:22 controllers here at Runnersway.
01:23 Is it the case though that the problem seems to have been eased over the winter simply
01:28 because there are fewer aircraft over the winter?
01:31 Yeah, so winter schedules typically take quite a lot of pressure out of the system. Airlines
01:36 typically have more aircraft spare to be able to cope with other issues that happen in their
01:41 wider network and you can start to spread some of the flights out throughout the day.
01:48 We work quite closely with Logan Air Emerald and EasyJet with the breaks. We went very
01:53 early on with very standard breaks so that it gives our airline partners a lot of time
01:58 to be able to schedule around them and to be fair we have a good relationship with all
02:02 of our airlines. We even had EasyJet in last week, their ops team, so some of their base
02:08 captain and head of regional ops who came in to tower to meet some of the ACOs and to
02:13 go through what summer could look like as well.
02:15 As we move into the spring/summer schedule, which starts in...
02:19 It starts roughly about April.
02:22 These issues might become more noticeable again?
02:24 Yeah, as more pressure is put into the system, more sectors are being flown by the same aircraft
02:29 and more aircraft, again more and more of them are likely to either encroach into that
02:34 break time or issues further down in, say for example, Europe or London airspace cause
02:40 delays earlier on or later on that then just bunch the aircraft into our break times. Our
02:45 break times are pretty set, it's not something where an aircraft is late coming from Liverpool
02:51 and then we end up saying right we're just going to delay our break by 30 minutes. A)
02:55 because our air traffic controller is at the limit of what they can do from their time,
03:00 so their duty hours, but also more importantly if we move it by 30 minutes then we'll have
03:04 to move every single break after that by 30 minutes, which we've told the airlines when
03:08 they are and then suddenly to every day sit and go right your new break times are this,
03:12 your new break times are that, it's going to impact more. It's far easier to do it very
03:16 steady, very regular, communicate and then work with them to try and mitigate it.
03:20 Our local ATC issues are being blamed for a whole range of other issues that actually
03:26 are outwith their control.
03:28 Yeah so you typically see in the summer quite a lot of issues with European weather, European
03:33 ATC strikes, there's quite a lot of congestion in London and a lot of our airports see knock-on
03:38 effects from those issues which then cause them to knock on into what we're doing here
03:43 at the Isle of Man. Sometimes a pilot will say an ATC issue and for them it is an ATC
03:48 issue it just might not necessarily be a Ronalds Way ATC issue. So naturally our ATC issues
03:53 are a compounding impact, there's no getting away from that, but there is normally more
03:57 going on than just an ATC issue here in Ronalds Way.
04:00 And is a problem as far as staffing is concerned that's felt right across Europe?
04:05 Yeah so right across Europe, so to be fair it's probably more acutely felt in America,
04:08 I think there's something like 4,000 air traffic controllers short so they're probably going
04:11 to have to put quite a lot of breaks in. But even in the UK we see quite a lot of closures
04:17 and short notice closures done by some of our other airports due to staffing. Again
04:23 recruiting is one thing but the two to three years of getting people fully validated and
04:27 going through training is the reason why this is probably going to be in place for a couple
04:30 of years.
04:31 Do you understand the frustration felt by passengers using Ronalds Way?
04:34 Yeah absolutely, I use Ronalds Way and my family and friends use Ronalds Way. No airport
04:40 director wants to have breaks put in but again it's my job to keep everybody safe. So you
04:46 could have one where you just ignore the fatigue breaks, you then start to have very very tired
04:51 air traffic controllers who make mistakes. These guys make mistakes and they're pretty
04:54 catastrophic. That's why all the rules exist. So again we will make sure that we come down
04:59 on the side of safety but we'll try to minimise any inconvenience that causes.
05:03 And hopefully the situation may improve later in the year?
05:06 So we're hoping that it will improve later this year. Again it is a very competitive
05:13 market for air traffic controllers both in from the UK taking from us or even Europe
05:18 and the Middle East offering some relatively rockstar salaries. And medicals there is another
05:22 issue where it's very very difficult to keep your medical as an air traffic controller.
05:26 Lots of relatively normal situations that people find, so isoform blood pressure, that
05:31 has the potential to make an ATCO lose their medical for quite a significant period of
05:35 time. So we have to make sure that a) we keep them fit and b) relatively happy so that they
05:42 stay and then hopefully give time for the new ATCOs that we've brought in in order to
05:47 validate. So this year I'm hoping we are fragile but we're in a better place than we were last
05:52 year and if things continue as they are then next year we'll be in a far better place.
05:57 So people can be confident at booking their flight?
06:00 Yeah absolutely. It's again hopefully minimum of we've still got the two breaks in and we
06:07 will communicate if anything was to change as we have been doing.
06:10 Thanks very much.