Oz Article - Cameron Stewart

Our comments imbedded in Red:

LAST week, as a dwindling number of air traffic controllers struggled to keep pace with the number of aeroplanes in the sky, one controller lost his cool.

"Who's off to jail then?" he fumed in an online forum for air traffic controllers and pilots. "Imagine our worst nightmare," he wrote. "TIBA (uncontrolled) airspace somewhere in Australia. Two aircraft collide, multiple fatalities. World headlines. The pilots had insufficient briefing on service levels and procedures. In the ensuring investigation, who would the authorities recommend be indicted on formal charges (for) reckless abandonment of responsibilities?"

It was a good question in the present climate, for there are few precedents in this country for what is going on in Australian skies. A shortage of air traffic controllers is forcing large chunks of the skies to be unmanned for hours on end, meaning there is no air traffic controller to monitor the passage of fully-laden jumbo jets criss-crossing this airspace.

Yes it’s a very good question, who would go to jail?

The federal Government's figures show that large sectors of Australian airspace were closed on 24 occasions in June, a record level and a one-third increase on May. What's more, passengers are told nothing. They do not know when they board a plane whether they are flying through uncontrolled airspace or what risks they face.

TIBA on 24 Occasions is scandalous; is this each sector or ‘groups of sectors’ being counted?  Is this including the multiple events to allow controller breaks, or simple 1 NOTAM = equals one count? Basically once a day Airshambles is uanble to provide any service whatsoever.  How many times a day is it providing a less than minimum ATC establishment service?

How dangerous this practice is depends on who you speak to. Air traffic controllers are unhappy, warning that this is a disaster waiting to happen.

Air safety regulator the Civil Aviation Safety Authority disagrees, maintaining that uncontrolled airspace - while not desirable - does not pose an unacceptable risk to aircraft and passengers.

CASA has suddenly shifted ground on TIBA, now they are ‘auditing pilots’ and reviewing ATC procedures relating to TIBA.  On the first visit the CASA dude was very unimpressed by what he saw; look out for more news on TIBA from CASA, of course for political expedience the news may never get out.

Qantas has signalled its view by instructing its pilots to avoid flying through uncontrolled airspace wherever possible. It has cancelled, delayed and diverted flights as a result of the increasing number of airspace closures in recent months.

Qantas appears to avoid TIBA where it can, but on multiple occasions Qantas has flown through TIBA and in some cases only minor diversions would have been required to avoid the Area effected.

So how did such a disturbing situation arise in a country with a well-resourced and advanced aviation industry?

The origins of the problem can be traced to the early 2000s when air traffic control manager Airservices Australia - a government-owned but airline industry-funded body - failed to plan for future air traffic control needs. This inexplicable management oversight was not noticed or felt for many years, but it has grave implications.

Don’t be fooled here Cameron, Airservices reduced ATC recruiting as early ago as 2006.  They ‘restructured’ the training college, now called the Learning Academy.  They moved on multiple contract instructors as they wouldn’t need them “going forward”.  

Airservices restructured ATC into Service delivery environments (SDEs) and the executive apparently were promised massive staff reductions as a result of the efficiencies of that project.  Unfortunately the SDE and concurrent management restructure has absorbed more resources than it saved; much more.

Airservices did not read the global trends of growing air traffic coupled with an international shortage of controllers. It did not lift recruitment when it should have and now - because of the long lead-time needed for training - it cannot solve the shortage.

The shortages in the short term could be significantly reduced by releasing managers back to consoles; but ideology is god in this organisation, you can’t be the boss and work side by side with someone; it’s just crap!  The management restructure also threw up multiple redundancies; so we lost controllers to replace those managers who got VR; there are more awaiting the AIRC decision on whether they get VR too.

Airservices chief executive Greg Russell admitted his organisation's liability in a private letter written to an airline in February and obtained by The Australian.

"When I arrived in 2005 one of the first requests was to see the Airservices workforce plan to see how the organisation intended to address future resource requirements," he wrote. "There was no such plan available."

This is a common lie. and Greg should be made to prove it.  There was significant ATC planning done in 2000, 2002 and again 2004.  Greg Russell’s first mission was to reduce staffing, he did so in non operational positions by giving out multiple redundancy packages; he did it in Air Traffic Control by reducing recruitment.

Russell said little planning had been done to address recruitment and the fact that many of Australia's 900 controllers were nearing retirement.

Wrong, this was done to death, the Certified Agreement process in 2001/2002 called for 60 trainees per year infinitum to address the pending ‘staffing crisis’. That plan was rejected on a cost basis and the reliance of overtime increased. It was a calculated and deliberate decision; new technology was supposed to save bodies by now.

"All of these issues were uncovered against a backdrop of a worldwide shortage of air traffic controllers and increasing customer demands and growth," he wrote.

He’s lying.  Greg Russell is often loose with the truth.  If he truly believe this then his advisors are lying to him., fact.

Airservices is belatedly trying to redress the shortage by more than doubling the number of recruits to between 80 and 100 a year. This will solve the problem in several years, but offers no immediate solution. The result, say air traffic controllers, is that the existing workforce is being overworked and saddled with unrealistic demands.

"Staff shortages abound," says Robert Mason, head of the air traffic control union Civil Air, which claims there is a 10 per cent shortfall of about 80 controllers in Australia.

He says controllers are often asked to come in on days off and and while on leave to cover shortages and avoid airspace closures.

"Simple things like breaks to go to the toilet or give tired eyes a break from staring at consoles or airborne traffic are willingly forgone to minimise disruptions to service," Mason says.

But the Government does not believe that controllers are as being as pure and selfless as Civil Air would like people to believe. Government sources believe Civil Air is exploiting staff shortages and exaggerating safety risks in order to win steep rises in pay and conditions. They maintain that there is a shortfall of only 17 controllers, not 80.

They are being loose with the truth again. this magic low number is about bodies on consoles, but the other 63 jobs are needed and required to get us back to full staffing.  The other jobs are in training, licencing and project work; all ‘required’ tasks; yet not included in the headline Airshambles figures, why?

Civil Air is pushing for pay rises of between 32 and 63 per cent over three years when its collective agreement with Airservices expires at the end of the year. The move would have senior air traffic controllers earning $175,000 a year from January.

Civil Air says this will bring Australia more into line with the conditions enjoyed by controllers overseas.

It’s true, in Europe and the Middle East the conditions of employment and monetary incenties are significantly higher than $175,000.  People have traditionally stayed here, because Australia is great, but now, they have reached the crest on the pile of shit and don’t want to work for Russell and his cronies any longer.

While Airservices will not comment on the wages push, the timing could not be worse for airlines that face record fuel prices and for a Government seeking to contain inflation.

What would the cost to the airlines be if you gave us everything we wanted?  We have read figures of 35 cents to 75 cents per ticket; not exactly a massive breakout in inflation.  One of us paid 50 cents more for a roll earlier today compared to yesterday; a 25% rise.

Civil Air is unrepentant about its claim, saying it is the only way to attract and retain air traffic controllers in the future.

But the pay claim means that Airservices and the Government are viewing controllers' safety complaints through the prism of industrial politics. In this volatile climate there is a risk that authorities will downplay the warnings of air traffic controllers regardless of how credible these warnings are.

It is clear that they are circling the wagons, CASA and Airshambles are relying on the lack of accidents to justify safety; is it acceptable, hell no.

Former CASA chairman Dick Smith says air traffic controllers are right to warn about the danger of passenger jets flying through uncontrolled airspace, describing the practice as "incredibly unsafe".

"I find it amazing it could ever be allowed to happen," Smith says. "In other countries, they would not allow aircraft to fly in that airspace."

Last week The Australian revealed warnings from controllers that many foreign pilots do not understand the correct collision avoidance procedures in uncontrolled airspace.

Not just foreign pilots, all of them; but at least Australian pilots will have more familiarity to it as they are likely to see it more often.

When flying through uncontrolled airspace, pilots must rely on themselves and other pilots to avoid collisions by keeping track of developments on a common frequency.

Without a controller watching over them, the potential for human error is magnified, especially because pilots are not trained to separate aircraft. Some controllers say they have seen examples of aircraft in uncontrolled airspace failing to broadcast their presence and their movements on the correct frequencies.

One controller, writing on an online industry forum said: "It quickly became apparent that none of the international crews - Malaysian Airlines, Thai Airways, Singapore Airlines - understood the procedures."

Could he be right?  Perhaps they’ve never heard of TIBA, perhaps they have never received any training in it, perhaps their operations departments haven’t got full knowledge and didn’t draw pilots attention to the relevant NOTAMs.

Peter McGuane, executive director of Civil Air, says controllers often have to teach foreign pilots the safety procedures for uncontrolled airspace in mid-flight.

CASA initially dismissed the concerns revealed in The Australian, saying that the procedures for uncontrolled airspace are internationally mandated rules that all pilots are taught and are explained in flight manuals.

But really do we believe that?  In Manuals yes, but taught it?  When? Are they current in these procedures? Not on your nelly.

But what CASA did not say was that many foreign pilots have never before used these procedures because they do not have uncontrolled airspace in their countries.

Singapore Airlines hit back at the controller's claims about foreign pilots, implying that it bordered on racism.

"Our pilots are trained to the highest internationally recognised standards and suggestions that they would compromise safety in controlled or uncontrolled airspace, whereas pilots for Australian carriers would not, are both false and professionally offensive," the airline said.

Again there was never intent to differentiate, all pilots are equally inept at flying in TIBA.  They are neither worse or better than Aussie pilots, all pilots are crap at flying in TIBA, and if CASA doesn’t know that then heads need to roll.

The airline said the controller's claims were part of an Australian industrial dispute and that it did not want to become involved.

TIBA is nothing to do with an industrial claim, perhaps they have their wires crossed too?

Yet several days after The Australian's story appeared, CASA said it would start quizzing foreign pilots about their knowledge of the procedures for flying through uncontrolled airspace.

CASA also said it would write to foreign airlines pointing out that there was uncontrolled airspace in Australia and ask them to refresh their knowledge of the procedures.

These actions by CASA contradicted its initial claims that there was nothing to worry about. It made the regulator appear to be reactive on a safety issue that affects all Australians who fly.

CASA has been caught out, they don’t know whether there is compliance with the procedures or not, they haven’t checked before, again, no accidents = safe, well maybe not.

Civil Air has now called for a sweeping review of the safety of passenger jets flying through uncontrolled airspace.

But CASA says that to ban jets from uncontrolled airspace would raise other potential risks, such as overcrowding in other airspace sectors, or forcing planes to take long detours. If planes were forced to take long detours this would add significantly to airline fuel and maintenance costs and would push air fares higher.

The costs and inconvenience would be substantial. Yet they would be nothing compared to the horrendous cost of a midair collision.

Amen!

For now, CASA maintains that the risks of such a collision are too small to support the dramatic step of closing all uncontrolled airspace.

"CASA has already done careful risk analysis and we believe this is the best way to proceed while acknowledging it would be far more preferable to have (controllers) all the time," CASA spokesman Peter Gibson says.

Controllers say this is not good enough and that not all pilots are knowledgable enough to send their jets hurtling safely through uncontrolled airspace.

To gain situational awareness is extremely difficult, pilots are keenly listening for reports of traffic at their level; but when pilots are choosing to change level either for a better ride or because they are getting near their destination the risks are significantly raised.

"There is a serious deficiency in what advice-briefing these crews are receiving," writes one controller in an online forum. "Personally I don't think the NOTAMS (the instructions given to pilots about flying through uncontrolled airspace) spell out exactly what they are getting themselves and the 300 trusting souls down the back of each of these flights into.

"This is in no way a reflection or comment on my fellow controllers: it is an indictment on our management for letting things get this bad, and on CASA for not ensuring that international crews operating in to this airspace are adequately operationally prepared."

Despite the warnings from air traffic controllers, CASA says there have so far been no confirmed close calls between aircraft in uncontrolled airspace.

How would anyone know? The only event that would be reported is a TCAS Resolution advisory; so a pair of aircraft could miss by 5NM on crossing tracks and there are no reports to be filled yet in reality they are less than 20 seconds from a midair. This is BIG SKY THEORY at it’s best.

Smith says this is no defence for what he believes is an inherently unsafe practice. "As people fly across Australia they think there is an air traffic controller instructing their pilot, telling them how to keep clear of other planes, but often there is not," he says.

"Pilots are not air traffic controllers; they don't have the training to work out where they are. It is impossible to believe this is really happening in this country."

Amen!

In the news

In recent weeks it appears that the mainstream media have given us a run.  Some of them, despite the false starts of 63% wages claim, are even starting to question the inevitable 'TIBA is safe" and "Safety has never been compromised" and 'pilots are trained in the procedures" and "International practice" defences trumped out by the PR Spinners of CASA and Airshambles, when they are providing no ATC service whatsoever.  Heck TIBA is worse than OCTA, cause at least in the OCTA environment you get a traffic statement about other IFRs.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24019978-23349,00.html?from=public_rss

We will be back soon with our analysis of this article, but the main questions you can garnish from this article are:

1) are the controllers causing TIBA running an industrial campaign, or 

2) are the numbers really low and will be that way for some time, and/or

3) is TIBA not safe as claimed by the controllers and those responsible will really be in the shit if something goes wrong.

Airshambles 1st position – part 2

The primary focus of managing the business is in the area of attendance.  

The inference therefore must be there is a significant problem with attendance.  But what are the facts?  Excluding long term sick-leave (3 months +) the average sick leave in the centres is 11 days per annum, slightly higher in Sydney and much lower in regional towers and the outer TCUs/TWRs. 

This compares to other public service roles and those other roles do not work 24/7/365 shift work.  HARDLY 4 times the national average, Julian, you've been sold a pup!

Is our sick leave too high? Well yes, in some cases there is leave taking which could be inferred as "abuse of leave"; but the problem we have is the way that all ATCs are targeted with the same managerial plan.  Rather than address the individuals that abuse leave entitlements; they sweep everyone into the ‘problem bucket’ and punish us all.  So because we don’t have managers that can sort out staffing issues, we need broad brush policies and practices.  Leaders leading, ha, not likely, fools reacting, yes that’s closer.

Sick Leave cap.

Well you can’t buy what we have now, so can we sell it?  What value would you really place on introducing a cap.  Ask anyone struck down with an immediate issue, such as cancer or a heart attack, how much value they place on sick leave as required.

We have heard some managers say that they could still approve sick leave payments for legitimate issues, inference, current sick leave is not legitimate.

Can you get ‘income protection' as an Air Traffic Controller?  No, is the simple answer, so if you can’t insure yourself against a long term illness and the employer won’t pay you if you get sick, what exactly will we do to protect ourselves, yes the fog is clearing, KEEP SICK LEAVE AS REQUIRED; don't touch it!

What if we conceded to a maximum of 7 days without certificate, with no restriction on leave with certificate?  Yes we'll give you that for $15K each on base pay, seems fair given that we currently run at 30+ days each (well according the J.McGauran) of illegitimate leave, and it would comply the governments Enterprise Bargaining Framework, productivity initiatives for more pay.

Non Operational Duty.

We have higher standards than the general community relating to health and fitness when performing the task of ATC.  We cannot take many readily available over the counter drugs and ‘soldier on’, etc. So what should we do?  

Airshambles seems to believe that ATCs don’t do enough non operational shifts, when they have a head cold, have a migraine, etc, when they have taken codeine, pseudoephedrine or similar drugs.  

Well there are a number of reasons why we avoid non operational work, most come back to management.  What does a non-operational controller do?  Plenty, if you have an admin portfolio or the like, not much if you are simply a ‘tools man’, filing paperwork is not legitimate work for non operational ATCs.  Most ATCs are paid to do operational work only, pity that's not always possible.

Then what shift are you working during your non-operational day at work, as rostered or something else.  Most controllers organise their lives around their shift work, to change your shift at short notice to ‘work non-operational duty’ it may have a significant effect on your outside of work life; the work life balance.  This isn’t always the case, but try telling a manager that you’ll be in for non-operational duty from 10-17 vice your 06-13 shift and you’ll be meet with a WTF response; why?

What if you are fatigued for your 0600 shift.  You could work later in the day after you get sleep, damn that work life balance, already organised things with the accountant/doctor/kids/wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/principal etc. so can’t do that; is it fraudulent leave?  No it’s legitimate as long as you did all you could to reduce your fatigue prior to ‘taking the knock’. If you can do for example an afternoon vice a morning, to manage your illness, in this case, fatigue, will they let you?

So we are sure that more people would attend non-operational duty if there was true flexibility, and a method of assigning something worthy to do on said shifts.  Management is 100% responsible for not developing any value adding non-operational tasks and then they further exacerbate the issue by not allowing some shift flexibility if you can't front for the shift as rostered.  

Of course their concern is that if you can change shifts on a whim, without penalty, why would you ever work a doggo?

Did anyone else notice the line that ‘there is an obligation to work reasonable additional hours’?  Why slip this into the ‘sick leave’ section?

The current rule states:

4.3.1 We expect that you will work a reasonable amount of additional hours if the requirement becomes necessary. You may choose not to work additional hours in circumstances where the working of such hours would result in you working hours which are unreasonable after consideration of:

(a) Any risk to your health and safety;

(b) Your personal circumstances including any family responsibilities;

(c) The needs of the workplace;

(d) The notice given by us and by you of your intention to choose not to work the additional

hours; and

(e) Any other relevant matter.

Consultation:

We think this means Airshambles wants the right to do whatever they want, the consultation clauses make it very inconvenient for us when staff point out that consultation is required as per the agreement.  How many times have they been caught out not consulting; more than they have done it right in the first place.

Part 7:

They want to reduce (clarify/simplify) your entitlements relating to ‘Discipline, Redeployment and Termination of Employment’.  We assume this means that they want to impose more restructures and not be caught out by possible redundancy provisions; like during the ALM debacle; there are still some ATCs waiting AIRC advice about their entitlements.  We also suspect that they want to be able more readily able to sack employees that have disciplinary issues, these existing processes are very restrictive on their ability to be complete arse-holes.

Grievances:

Airshambles obviously doesn’t understand what the current grievance system is.  The paragraph they have written is exactly what the current process is, idiots.

Sustaining Capability (you’re joking right?)

Air Traffic Control is a great place to work and is able to maintain capability within the global marketplace. Oh please!  We have the lowest morale ever, you need to fix it, you need to relax terms and conditions and be less focused on 'fraud' and more focused on the individual.

How about starting with paying global rates and recognising that working 24/7/365 is difficult.  How about not standing people down for every little irrelevant event, how about recognising that our safety culture is primarily a box ticking exercise. How about giving something back? How about tapping someone on the shoulder and saying go home, you've done a good days work?

Airshambles now wants ‘flexibility’ in recleave; but wait they wanted the 18 month rolling plans so they could be better informed about operational training requirements and sustaining capability.  This was a pillar of the Airshambles position in 2002. Well which is it?  Locking in things so you can plan, or needing flexibility cause you can’t organise a beer in a brew house?

Methods of retaining ATCs, SHOW ME THE MONEY JERRY!  Do we smell individual contracts?

Career development, blah blah, how about sticking to something? Management training, how many processes in the last 5 years, leaders leading, cert IVs in frontline management etc.

Less CBT, real training courses, real refresher training, movement between ATC roles, now that’s development, reduce change, INFORMATION OVERLOAD LEADS TO MANAGEMENT ARSE COVERING AND INCREASED RISK!

Career Break scheme options - is that a carrot?  You can’t be trusted, we know that in 5 years time we will still be short and you know it, you can give us all you want when we have full staffing, not in the three years of the next agreement.  Next move on, no wait that’s it.

Airshambles, we here at the shafters are very unimpressed by your first effort, F, go back to your desk do better next time.

Airshambles 1st position – part 1

Five meetings into the negotiations, which are to be conducted in an open, honest manner, in a more positive way than last time and we have got the first card played by the employer relating to what they want.

How predictable.  In making the work environment a better place to work, they want to SHAFT YOU some more.  Way to go, way to build morale; way to win them over.

The first point of order: GET RID OF PORS the obvious route of all evil, that cripple the business and only let them make $106M in 06/07 and more in 07/08.

The employer wants to get rid of PORS, well are they a dead duck, well you can have them, when you take them out of our COLD DEAD HANDs.

Under the enterprise bargaining framework this would represent how much?  Well in our minds it’s worth 50% of our wage.  Want us to give up PORs show us the money, otherwise Piss Off, Right (POR).  This is a significant opportunity to offer us a bloody good pay rise.

 Shift Lengths: They want flexibility to roster 6 to 10 hour shifts as they choose; they don’t want to pretend the teams thing exists, well because it doesn’t.  Note the lack of ‘run of shifts' advice here?  Maybe 6 x 6 hours shifts a week would be much more efficient.

 They don’t want to be held accountable to staff if they don’t want to start working at 5am, get rid of FA requiring the 5am start; well it was only recently changed, but that was because of FRMS, was it not?  We know that 5am starts are debilitating, why would you need to ask staff to turn up at that unholy hour, just tell them to be there.

Triple acquittal:  Once upon a time, as an employer of choice, the employer would recognise the debilitating effect of starting work before 6am; hell 6am starts are tough enough.  To start at say 5am and work through to 3pm, a ten hour shift would be neigh on impossible, we are talking air traffic control here, not sweeping floors or digging ditches, give us a break.  You don’t like it, fine, staff the night shifts properly and avoid paying the triple acquittal.

Start Finish periods:  They want to start and finish shifts as per their whim.  Will we see 4am finishes, 3am starts? Of course we will.  This benevolent employer will do what ever it can; hell they often ignore the rules by ‘reinterpreting them’ give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.  This is SHAFT CENTRAL - the not so thin end of the wedge.

FRMS alternative: Sure bring it on, let’s have real science behind our rosters, seek review of rosters worked from those that work them.  Evidence is one thing reality is another.  If Airshambles had played real attention to the FRMS and used FAID as it was intended then maybe we would have some faith, alas, we do not trust you, CEO - Greg ‘Fencepost Turtle’ Russell, we do not trust you.  What have you given us in the last 3+ years that tells us you are trustworthy, oh yes absolutely nothing, no substance, no rewards, no retraining, no retention, nadda. Hot air and spin that we can all see through, you present very well but your message is management wank word bingo and it doesn’t cut the mustard.

Get rid of rostering Committees:  Hell they are obviously just a hindrance, how dare the workers put forward their point of view on rosters.  Notice subtle use of ‘centrally constructed’, yes they are going to buy another crap piece of software that will give them optimal efficiency and you no life whatsoever.  Of course it will work, trust us, the last 7 attempts have been abject failures because of PORs, not the products themselves; see point one.

Reasonable overtime:

They want to ‘spread’ the overtime pain, a fair enough concept, if we were all robot drones with the same extra curricular activities.  We aren’t.  If you are young and free, perhaps travel, dating, partying on your days off are more important than work.  If you are in the family realm, then maybe family activities, kids sport, birthday parties, special days are more important than going to work, if you are now free of kids and enjoying your later years, perhaps beers with mates, gardening, playing golf, having a punt, are more important than going to work. Some of us have no desire to improve our income, but would rather focus on non work activities, some of us obviously don't like our homes, because some of us are always at work, improving our incomes.

If you want us to reprioritise our lives, then SHOW US THE MONEY!  Getting less now for overtime than 3 years ago is not exactly the ‘incentive’ for going to work on your days off.  

Traditionally overtime is ‘double time’ obviously taking .15 off this community-normalised target is not enough incentive to give up other activities.  Then again it is about balance.  If we could actually get days off without calls to come in, perhaps we would be more willing to enjoy the extra cash on the occasional overtime shift; because we would be properly rested.  A significant amount of rosters do not have enough staff to cover base rosters, still.  Those that do often don’t have enough leave lines to acquit accrued leave; and you wonder why we have issues.

The real issue is not just TIBA and TRAs, which happen when only one or no ATCs are available, but how many times have we been below minimum staffing without any evidence of a NOTAM to industry and we the controller keep going despite at times being overloaded make it work.

Stanby shifts to apply to morning and nightshifts.  What do they mean?  Do they want to have grey day doggos?  What are grey days?  Oh yes we forgot to mention, PISS OFF!

Targeted additional shifts, this means they can call you and you can’t say no.  PISS OFF!  Roster us on or bugger off; we owe you 36 hours a week, that's what you pay us for.

Overall this is a pathetic effort from a pathetic employer, if we had a choice we'd be leaving in droves, whoops, we are; it's more an effort than seeking a job in the next suburb, but we are going; get used to it.

More Defending the indefensible

We have been busy in other places of late.  Most of the Certified Shafting Team have been exploring external employment opportunities and all have been successful. Yeah, well done team.  GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN.

Airshambles Australia have been pillared in the last few days by the main stream media.  With little opportunity to Spin their position, such is the veracity of the case against them.  Good on you media, at last some 'balanced' reporting.

We repeat today's Courier Mail editorial here to keep it handy for future reference.

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23989178-13360,00.html

THERE are some areas where cutting corners may be tolerable. Air safety is not one of them. If something goes disastrously wrong at 40,000 feet, there are no second chances.

You do not pull over to the side of the road to inspect the damage, or hope that the airbag will deploy properly as you careen into a ditch. With aircraft, the results are almost inevitably, and tragically, catastrophic.

It is of grave concern, therefore, to read the alarming reports of commercial pilots in Australia increasingly "flying blind" over airspace that is not being monitored by air-traffic controllers. Nor are these isolated instances. In the past fortnight there have been yawning gaps in air-traffic control coverage in southern Queensland and Cape York, as well as busy aviation routes such as that between Melbourne and Sydney. At the moment these black spots are causing extended delays as flights are rescheduled and redirected to fly around them.

Of equal concern are reports that foreign pilots – often in jets carrying hundreds of passengers – are effectively "flying blind" through deactivated airspace. Air-traffic controllers have warned that, with Australia being one of only a few countries that allows passenger jets to fly through unsupervised airspace, foreign pilots are often unaware of the safety procedures for navigating such routes.

The problem stems from a critical shortage of skilled air-traffic controllers. This has also raised the issue of controllers working extended or double shifts because of staff shortages, leading to claims of fatigue and stress. And this is a profession in which there is not a margin for error.

Nor, when it comes to fatigue-related safety concerns in the aviation industry, are air-traffic controllers on their own. At a recent Senate inquiry, the Australian and International Pilots Association raised claims of repeated breaches of regulations governing pilot fatigue and cockpit duty time.

Unlike so many other seemingly intractable problems at the moment, this one is fixable. The simple solution to the issue is to hire more air-traffic controllers, and pay them properly – both to attract new people to the sector and to retain experienced personnel.

If claims by the union representing the air-traffic controllers are true – that Airservices Australia was explicitly warned of staff shortages six years ago, but failed to act – are correct, then someone's head should roll. Only at the beginning of this year was a plan introduced to increase the number of recruits, which does not bode well for staff shortages and extended overtime in the short term.

When it comes to aviation, public safety is paramount in our increasingly busy skies. There is no room for error, and no scope for cutting corners.

As John Cusack's character remarks to a fellow air-traffic controller in the film Pushing Tin: "Oh, you really think the pilot is controlling this plane? That would really scare me."

Hopefully this will start getting Ministerial pressure on the CEO and Board.

We say TIBA is unacceptable.  Airshambles says TIBA is the appropriate contingency plan nd the risks are known. CASA says TIBA is international recognised and doesn't compromise Safety as the pilots have had training, The Ministers office says they wouldn't overrule CASA when it comes to safety, because they know their stuff when it comes to safety.  These are circular arguments we've all seen before.

Shit it's "NAS" all over again.  

The only difference is that Dick Smith has become the poster boy of the anti TIBA campaign.  We suspect he's out for Fence Post Turtles/TFN/Russell's blood.  Good on him, regardless of his motivation.