The USA’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is set to implement new working arrangements for air traffic controllers. The move comes in response to a number of aviation safety incidents, including one last week at Reagan National Airport, Washington DC, where two passenger jets escaped a collision by just 121 metres.
60 recommendations
An expert panel established to examine the recent series of safety concerns made 60 recommendations in all, from asking employees about their preferred working patterns, to increasing staff numbers and abolishing schedules that deny workers sufficient rest between shifts.
As the working rules stand, air traffic controllers can be asked to work again just eight hours after the end of a previous stint. This practice, the panel recommended, should be phased out to ensure no one has to work sooner than 10 hours after the end of their previous shift. This would rise to 12 hours, if the next shift is a midnight one.
The “rattler” shift
One particularly gruelling working pattern nicknamed “the rattler”, is currently the norm for 70% of air traffic controllers but should be completely abandoned, the panel said. It requires controllers to work five shifts across three different timeslots, including an overnighter, over only four days – followed by 80 hours off.
To make matters worse, the current staff shortages mean controllers are being asked to come in at short notice to cover missing or non-existent colleagues. Many are already working six days a week. Even as far back as 2001, air traffic controllers were attributing 50% of their errors to fatigue. 75% of controllers said they had almost fallen asleep on the job and a third said they had found themselves falling asleep behind the wheel of their own vehicles after leaving work.
New rules could cause coverage holes
Tiredness is a serious issue, said the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA), while the panel noted that “risk factors related to overtime, consecutive days or weeks worked, and mechanisms to address variable traffic/workload scenarios could be improved or potentially eliminated with appropriately increased staffing levels.”
However, staffing levels remain catastrophically low, with a minuscule net gain of just six controllers over the last year – and that amid a mass recruitment campaign, and NATCA has expressed concerns that the panel’s recommendations and the new rules could make matters worse.
“NATCA is concerned that with an already understaffed controller workforce, immediate application of the Administrator’s new rules may lead to coverage holes in air traffic facilities’ schedules,” the body said in a statement. “Requiring controllers to work mandatory overtime to fill those holes would increase fatigue and make the new policy nothing more than window dressing.”
The ban on rest periods of less than eight hours is due to come into force within the next three months.
