ATC Update

Friday August 23, 2024

Chris Brian, Manager Air Traffic Services (MATS) at Gloucestershire Airport has issued the following ATC update.

“It has been a challenging year in ATC at Gloucestershire but it's a challenge the team is rising to. Whilst staffing levels have led to closures it is hoped that our planning and hard work will soon mean the end of any re-occurrences.

We have recruited several new ATCOs but that does not mean they have all started already. Oh that it were simple enough that we could just recruit and train but it is a very competitive market in ATC at the moment and we can only train a finite number of controllers at once due to a number of reasons including the number of trainers available, numbers of hours that we can legally train etc.

That being said, the good news is that our 2 Trainee ATCOs currently training in Aerodrome (Tower) Control have made great starts and have provisional unit endorsements (sometimes called validation boards) booked for 23rd October. They may have been ready a little before that but the CAA Inspectors have to attend and they are maxed out too and we have to accept dates that are offered to us.

We also have 2 more Trainees due to join us on the 2nd of December. They are both currently on their Basic ATC Course at Global ATS and once they finish that they will move on to their ADI (Tower) Course. We wish them all the best with their studies and look forward to them joining the team soon.

We have another member of our current ATC team who has passed their FEAST (First European ATC Selection Test - a very in depth method of assessing someone's suitability to be an ATCO) and will attend Global ATS for ATCO training when they can be released from their current role as Air Traffic Services Assistant (ATSA).

We have also identified a military controller who is attending civil ATC courses in February and will be joining us next June subject to pre-employment checks.

It is easy to think that we have only been short of ATCOs but we have also faced staffing challenges in Management, Engineering and with ATSAs. We are really pleased to say that in the last few weeks we have recruited 2 new ATSAs internally (one already fully trained and one almost there!), an Air Traffic Engineer (already fully trained and assessed by the CAA) and one of our ATCOs has been promoted to Deputy Manager ATS after that role was left vacant due resignation.

Most importantly our manpower plan for the next 3 rolling years is up and running and doing exactly what it says on the tin!

Nobody wanted any days without an ATC service but through planning and hard work the "indemnity days" are proving a success and allowing many home based operators to continue to fly safely. It is not ideal but we so appreciate everyone's understanding and cooperation. Hopefully there are more of these days behind us than ahead and we'll keep you all posted with more details.

We did talk about the possibility of providing an Air Ground Communication Service on the non-ATC days but for a host of understandable regulatory requests it was felt that this wouldn't benefit our operators sufficiently to implement at this time although we are not ruling it out if it can provide benefit in the future.

Behind the scenes, and despite all of the other challenges, the ATC Upgrade Project continues apace. The new VCR furniture is installed on the ground floor for testing purposes and the project team continue to work on the installation of the new voice switch, recorders and met equipment. When such a big project is actioned there is a great deal of training that is required for incumbent staff to undertake (engineers, ATCOs and ATSAs) and due to the staffing challenges still facing us it means that the training will be slower than we would have hoped. Having said that we are still hoping that the project will be completed in the early part of 2025. 

Whilst all of the above has been happening we had the small matter of the annual CAA ATC audit taking place a couple of weeks back. A year ago the airport was placed "on notice" following the 2023 audit. Due to a great deal of hard work and change (whilst still facing many challenges) this year's audit was relatively successful and we are no longer ‘on notice’. We were pleased with the comments from the CAA whilst respecting that we still have a few findings to action and that there is much work to complete to get to where we want to be, but, the team is reassured that we are definitely heading in the right direction.”

In spite of all of the challenges we have faced we have continued to operate ATC as part of a very busy GA, maintenance and business airport, and dealt with all the day to day issues that that entails. We would just like to thank our amazing staff who have made this possible over the last few months! Thank you.

Chris, who joined the leadership team at Gloucestershire Airport earlier this year, has 30 years Air Traffic Control (ATC) experience. In his 22 year career at NATS he was an Air Traffic Services Assistant, Tower and Radar Controller, Instructor, Assessor, Training Manager and Watch Manager at Cardiff Airport. He was also Aerodrome Course Manager at NATS ATC Training College and spent time as a Consultant Instructor at Global ATS. He also held the role as Manager Air Traffic Services for 2 years at Inverness Airport prior to joining Gloucestershire Airport.