Management de l'ATC Tower

My idea is for a distant future of the airport CEO, and it would be implemented after https://forum.apoglabs.com/t/staff-shift-scheduling/8342?u=pderuiter and https://forum.apoglabs.com/t/events-and-emergencies/520.
The proposal has the following points:

  • New employee type:
    Air controller (the skils and salaries of employee offers would tend to be high, in addition it can be leaked). They would also put if they have controller experience, with this you can assign them to controllers or helpers (which can be promoted when they improve).
    They would give shifts of 8h to each employee (with discounts). The maximum number of employees at the maximum time of day would be: in the small tower 8 and in the large 16, as they would park in the car parks in the tower (there would be a need for service road access) and in 1 car 2 people would come.
    The employees have a bar of accumulated stress and when they reach a year of work (12 days of the game) they already have so much stress that they leave the job, send a letter saying that they leave of the work, then have the option to replace that person for some offer of Employee after a certain day.
  • Inprovements for the ATC tower: quantity + or - great investment daily for revisions and renovations of the equipment used each month, extension of small to large tower (+ visibility and + security) with the possibility of placing a radar of little or much power (+ daily cost and + security)
  • Possible accidents (emergency service and airline consequences would already be implemented): unlike emergency landings, the potential for accidents due to ATC would be calculated:
    Each employee has the following scores, all between -50 (minimum) and 50 (max): logic skill, skill plannery, techinical skill and handle stress. The lowest score would be scored and multiplied by the absolute value. The scores of each employee are added (at every moment of the day) (an stressed employee whose score remains instead of adding) (the helpers do not infuse).
    The chances of having an accident would be 1 / given result, that is to say that 1 of each many landings or takes offs realized would have an accident because off ATC tower.
    The ratio of air traffic to traffic and the number of tracks with the ATC improvements is assessed, affecting the possibilities of accidents (it can increase up to 50% or reduce them to 33%).
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1 Like

Interesting suggestion, but my question is, how much control over the staffing of the ATC tower does an aiport usually have, isn’t this the responsibility of the respective aviation authorities?

The airport merely supplies the facilities for ATC.

But, let’s see what the community says, wouldn’t mind a feature likes this.

I wonder if you are Catalan because your auto correct has put Gestió. This has nothing to do with the topic. But I want to know if I am not the only person in this country playing the game…

ATC staffing is down to aviation authorities, but the number of employees are dependent on traffic load. Remember that airports must report flight schedules to aviation authorities along with all host of other figures, such as airport load, number of ‘heavy’ aircraft serviced, runway maintenance schedules etc

Ok, makes sense, that sounds like something my COO would do (reporting of required data to the authorities).

Yes, I’m Catalan, I’m sorry, I forgot to change the title, I’ve already fixed it.

Air trafic controll can be provided by the airport or a contractor like NATS in the UK, as my day job is ATC and I work for a provider who works for the airports. But airports can hire and manage their own Atc. In the UK.

You are correct that airports can hire their own ATC, but that is because ATC at the airport is a little different than airspace control. The aviation authorities still dictate the minimum amount of controllers, shifts and shift lengths - I am curious though, since you say you are ATC - how long are you shifts? and are you an airport ATC and do you alternate between ground and tower every 3h?

You are also correct that contractors are involved - like everywhere these days really. NATS is currently servicing 10ish UK airports and services are not only for ATC, but also engineering and maintenance for example, like in Heathrow.

Please do remember, however than the point of the game is to run a privately owned airport and there is only a handful of those in the world, since 98% of the airports run at deficit.

Alright, as we are all CEOs of privately run aiports, and thus need to show a profit in our operations, there should be an option of employing private ATC, much like we currently do with other airport staff, or letting the aviation authorities do that, and merely provide infrastructure (ATC tower).

However, if I decide to employ private ATC, that staff then needs to be way more professional that airport staff that are late and security staff who go on a break, leaving stations understaffed or not at all. That alone makes me merely want to supply infrastructure, and not micromanage ATC, as I do that enough with the staff that I do hire.

@Silvokial

At Manchester Airport we have shifts of 8 hours and 6 of theose are working the other 2 are on breaks. We work from 6am till 2pm or 2pm till 10pm or 10pm till 6am. And we stay assigned to either tower, ground or radar for that 8 hour shift.

NATS provide the airspace controll for the UK and it is all managed by contractors rather than airports. But as you said most airports chose to have contractors over regular staff as it is cheaper and saves money to reduce the airport economic deficit.

I believe there should be a feature where depending on controller coverage and tower quality, you are limited to little and infrequent flights for no tower. For airports with a lower and little controller coverage you can hangle ga and small commercial flights. And for a big tower and good controller coverage you can handle all flights.

Also if. You dont have a big tower you can’t have more that one runway.

Interesting operational culture difference here. Most people complain that US regulations allow to clear landings when the runways are not yet clear, unlike in Europe - correct me if I’m wrong please, but they are only allowed to work 3h assigned to one job to avoid falling into a bad routine where mind gets bored and loses focus.

I have no problems hiring ATC but there is A LOT to do until that can work and pathfinding for airplanes would need a major overhaul to allow that. It is also problematic considering different runway and taxiway layout would require individual approach to traffic handling.

Overall it is a very difficult thing to design systemically and as much as I like the idea, I don’t think it can be done anytime soon not should it be priority over other features like multi floors or big aircraft

@Silvokial yeh I agree it would be complicated to design and implement. But it would make the game very realistic especially if it were implemented with a ils or mls or a gns landing approach aids

If there were different types of ils like cat I cat I I cat lll and cat lll B ils system, and depending on the weather and your ils, aircraft may have to hold or divert if the weather does not improve or the airport does jot have the required ils category to allow landing in certain weather types.

Also air trafic controllers in NATS tay assigned to one position per shift and they change every shift so this prevents people from getting bored and help to keep them fresh.

The only downside is that IFR rules and runway category are tied to weather and location which are yet another difficult things to design.

Another quick question since you are ATC in Manchester: do you rotate runway directions depending on time of day? I would assume that landings are on 05R and take-offs on 05L but does it change on predetermined intervals?

@Silvokial

No the runway direction is determined on where the wind is blowing as take off and landing are into wind and the only time it changes is if the wi nd changes. But during the quieter seasons currently we open the second runway about 6am till 10 and then and closes again.

@caolan753

This is sort of what I meant. Wind likes to change when pressure changes. I know Heathrow likes to vary it a lot, but you seem to follow more of a LAX kinda example - not surprising since LAX has 06 and 07 runways direction so it’s quite similar. Thank you for your answers.

@Silvokial

No problem I like to tell people about my job and enlighten aviation enthusiasts with all the inner workings of atc and how it works.

@caolan753, thanks from me as well. I have visited the Tower at FAOR, which also houses Approach and Area Controllers, and it was interesting to see things from that perspective, as I have only ever spoken to ATC over the radio.

They also have their ATC Academy there with a Tower Simulator, it’s not as easy as it looks! They would make a plane catch fire on the taxiway while I was on tower! Even simulated, it’s tense.

@Capt_Bismuth

I agree everyday is busy especially with emergencies that occur every so often. At Manchester Airport the fire service can be called out to incidents 3 to 5 times a day, this just shows how busy it is. The fire station also covers medical calls and airport terminal or airside fires.

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