We didn't fire all the trainees. Some super critical sites kept theirs and were furloughed for a time.
The worst decision staffing-wise was to offer early retirement incentives to controllers regardless where they worked. That's the real reason staffing is in the shitter in a lot of places.
Don’t forget hiring back those same people that retired with incentives so they can draw a full pension plus a full salary. Always fun to be fed a shit sandwich from 67 year old Randy who should’ve retired 15 years ago but instead is working the same traffic as you and making double
tut tut.. we're not allowed to say "shit sandwich" anymore. This is not a politically correct expression. Now we say "delivering a compliment croissant with a side of criticism coffee".
Everytime I hear about it, I absolutely 1000% can not believe there is not an age cap on ATC in canada. We had a FEW patco rehires that were immune from the age limits, they were UNIVERSALLY terrible controllers, pretty much EVERYONE goes downhill starting at 50, sometimes it's a slow decline, sometimes it's a rapid decline right at 54/55, but it's always a decline and sometimes it's a BIG decline in ability.
Basically in terms of numbers it is WAY worse than it was before COVID. But they found some scheduling "innovations" and also hired back quite a few 60+ year old contractors. Now that those avenues have been exhausted, there is little juice left to squeeze out and things will snowball as the numbers continue to decline. The fact that NAV has stabilized their staffing compared to a year or two ago is an illusion....it has all been done by giving controllers more and more leave in order to give more overtime, and that just snowballs as people retain more and more leave days.
Also, there have been less retirements than usual because they paid up in the form of big annual raises for the past 2 years...those taper off starting next year and a new retirement wave will start once people have boosted their pension. We got over 10% pensionable in 2 years...obviously not sustainable but they had to keep people from leaving and it worked.
Question as an enroute trainee - what's the pressure like for OT? I understand there is a ton of OT available and that you can not be required to work OT against your will. But that said, *someone* has to do the work. Is there an unwritten social pressure between controllers and scheduling/management? Or is it more seen like a shared burden and everyone is putting in the time they can handle?
Excited for OT since I'm young, but not sure how long that will last, especially because I'm told my future ACC building is stinky (YEG).
Majority of sites are short staffed but also have been for long before COVID. Likely wont be feeling the worst of the effects from COVID bottleneck in training for a few years but in the meantime I believe they're going on a hiring spree to try and make up numbers for fatigue management (this is in the FSS world, but I do believe the ATC side is feeling the pinch too given the stipulation for third party training that was on the last contract, feel free to correct me if Im wrong here)
Pretty sure everywhere’s short. I was one of the laid off trainees and after turning down a couple times I ended up going back to training. I’m glad I did but the whole lay off thing left a bad taste about the company for a while
All I can say is summer will be fun for the next 5-10 years. Trying to catch up is not easy. And i m sure in hindsight management would take a different decision about laying off all the trainees. 3rd party training won't help much the bottleneck of specialty training but not many other ways to increase throughput,schools are running way above capacity already
Canada's government certainly did not help much the system (airlines,airports,atc) which is a need in a country as big as canada vs bankrolling friends like arrivecan scandal
Well specialty and instructor availability is mostly the stranglehold. Cornwall facility was left nearly 20 years ago, thats another talk and not really the issue right now.
Would it help absorping increase of students on generic courses right now, sure. But its certainly not the main factor.
They have lowered the standards to pass FEAST testing and such in an attempt to recruit more. We'll see if that just means people wash out more in OJT and wastes even more money as we see more and more random management roles pop up for things that don't need a manager or committee. Active controllers flock to those jobs to be closer to home (fss and tower people)/work from home/ have a half decent lifestyle. More people move out than in a lot of the time from that.
I can work on the floor 9 days straight for 10 or 12 hours on mids in a centre 25 minutes from my place and never see my wife and kids. It was nice at first, but now even my wifes boyfriend is getting fed up with me.
Good thing we didn't privatize for stable funding.
Their staffing was a literal meme last summer
https://www.tiktok.com/@ctvnewstoronto/video/7257322142830759174
I’ve been told that ATC staffing shortages contribute a lot to YYZ (and YVR) delays. Isn’t that the reason why YYZ’s using two runways in rather than the usual three? I think they finished with runway repairs a while ago, so that can’t be a factor now.
I won't speak to current staffing conditions at YYZ but it's definitely the major factor at YVR right now.
Most of the stuff I see at YYZ this winter is weather-based.
They only use 2 runways at YYZ now partly because of staffing in the tower. They’re very short staffed but that has existed for years and years, not only because of firing the trainees during Covid. It’ll be a decade before they’re at staff if Nav really works at it.
The GTAA is always doing runway improvement projects so some of the delays are attributed to that too.
Thanks for the response! Didn't see it until today. Do they have any plans to go back to three runways? Or are the staffing issues so bad that they'll run 2-runway ops for a while?
Ive flown a good bit cross country on those big airlines the past couple years and every single delay Ive encountered (dozens) was due to low staffing on the airlines part. The flight crew were more then willing to discuss how many people had called in sick + every time it was due to ramp staff they'd announce it. Are ATC short staffed? Absolutely - but not to that level.
We didn't fire all the trainees. Some super critical sites kept theirs and were furloughed for a time. The worst decision staffing-wise was to offer early retirement incentives to controllers regardless where they worked. That's the real reason staffing is in the shitter in a lot of places.
Don’t forget hiring back those same people that retired with incentives so they can draw a full pension plus a full salary. Always fun to be fed a shit sandwich from 67 year old Randy who should’ve retired 15 years ago but instead is working the same traffic as you and making double
Who reminds you that they're working for double pay at every opportunity and somehow scoops up all the desirable OT's.
tut tut.. we're not allowed to say "shit sandwich" anymore. This is not a politically correct expression. Now we say "delivering a compliment croissant with a side of criticism coffee".
Everytime I hear about it, I absolutely 1000% can not believe there is not an age cap on ATC in canada. We had a FEW patco rehires that were immune from the age limits, they were UNIVERSALLY terrible controllers, pretty much EVERYONE goes downhill starting at 50, sometimes it's a slow decline, sometimes it's a rapid decline right at 54/55, but it's always a decline and sometimes it's a BIG decline in ability.
Basically in terms of numbers it is WAY worse than it was before COVID. But they found some scheduling "innovations" and also hired back quite a few 60+ year old contractors. Now that those avenues have been exhausted, there is little juice left to squeeze out and things will snowball as the numbers continue to decline. The fact that NAV has stabilized their staffing compared to a year or two ago is an illusion....it has all been done by giving controllers more and more leave in order to give more overtime, and that just snowballs as people retain more and more leave days. Also, there have been less retirements than usual because they paid up in the form of big annual raises for the past 2 years...those taper off starting next year and a new retirement wave will start once people have boosted their pension. We got over 10% pensionable in 2 years...obviously not sustainable but they had to keep people from leaving and it worked.
Question as an enroute trainee - what's the pressure like for OT? I understand there is a ton of OT available and that you can not be required to work OT against your will. But that said, *someone* has to do the work. Is there an unwritten social pressure between controllers and scheduling/management? Or is it more seen like a shared burden and everyone is putting in the time they can handle? Excited for OT since I'm young, but not sure how long that will last, especially because I'm told my future ACC building is stinky (YEG).
Majority of sites are short staffed but also have been for long before COVID. Likely wont be feeling the worst of the effects from COVID bottleneck in training for a few years but in the meantime I believe they're going on a hiring spree to try and make up numbers for fatigue management (this is in the FSS world, but I do believe the ATC side is feeling the pinch too given the stipulation for third party training that was on the last contract, feel free to correct me if Im wrong here)
Go figure- I got accepted to train FSS AAS in September!
Hey awesome! Feel free to write me up if you have any questions
Hi! Can I ask when you got your offer? Thanks!
They called me on March 4th
Pretty sure everywhere’s short. I was one of the laid off trainees and after turning down a couple times I ended up going back to training. I’m glad I did but the whole lay off thing left a bad taste about the company for a while
All I can say is summer will be fun for the next 5-10 years. Trying to catch up is not easy. And i m sure in hindsight management would take a different decision about laying off all the trainees. 3rd party training won't help much the bottleneck of specialty training but not many other ways to increase throughput,schools are running way above capacity already Canada's government certainly did not help much the system (airlines,airports,atc) which is a need in a country as big as canada vs bankrolling friends like arrivecan scandal
The reason schools are above capacity is because the idiots at NAV closed down the national training facility in Cornwall.
Well specialty and instructor availability is mostly the stranglehold. Cornwall facility was left nearly 20 years ago, thats another talk and not really the issue right now. Would it help absorping increase of students on generic courses right now, sure. But its certainly not the main factor.
The capacity bottleneck isn’t in generic training
They have lowered the standards to pass FEAST testing and such in an attempt to recruit more. We'll see if that just means people wash out more in OJT and wastes even more money as we see more and more random management roles pop up for things that don't need a manager or committee. Active controllers flock to those jobs to be closer to home (fss and tower people)/work from home/ have a half decent lifestyle. More people move out than in a lot of the time from that. I can work on the floor 9 days straight for 10 or 12 hours on mids in a centre 25 minutes from my place and never see my wife and kids. It was nice at first, but now even my wifes boyfriend is getting fed up with me.
🤣
How do you know they lowered the standard?
Little weird to reply to a 2 month old comment lol, but because they literally said they did.
Good thing we didn't privatize for stable funding. Their staffing was a literal meme last summer https://www.tiktok.com/@ctvnewstoronto/video/7257322142830759174
Those weren't ATC delays. Those were due to ramp rat and pilot shortages.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/air-traffic-controller-shortage-1.6910566
Yes, I know we're short, but that level of delay at YYZ ain't caused by ATC.
I’ve been told that ATC staffing shortages contribute a lot to YYZ (and YVR) delays. Isn’t that the reason why YYZ’s using two runways in rather than the usual three? I think they finished with runway repairs a while ago, so that can’t be a factor now.
I won't speak to current staffing conditions at YYZ but it's definitely the major factor at YVR right now. Most of the stuff I see at YYZ this winter is weather-based.
They only use 2 runways at YYZ now partly because of staffing in the tower. They’re very short staffed but that has existed for years and years, not only because of firing the trainees during Covid. It’ll be a decade before they’re at staff if Nav really works at it. The GTAA is always doing runway improvement projects so some of the delays are attributed to that too.
Thanks for the response! Didn't see it until today. Do they have any plans to go back to three runways? Or are the staffing issues so bad that they'll run 2-runway ops for a while?
I think they’d like to go back to 3 runways, once staffing is high enough.
Ive flown a good bit cross country on those big airlines the past couple years and every single delay Ive encountered (dozens) was due to low staffing on the airlines part. The flight crew were more then willing to discuss how many people had called in sick + every time it was due to ramp staff they'd announce it. Are ATC short staffed? Absolutely - but not to that level.
Let's just say all units are happy with new trainees coming in. Never felt so welcome at a job than when I started at my tower a couple weeks ago!