Short staff in YVR this afternoon.

[CCR]

CYEG66, great post! My original post was a rant for sure. I love when the system works and both sides work together as a team. I do my part by flying my aircraft safely and efficiently and by following your instructions as I know I'm doing my part to help your job go more smoothly. As I've pointed out, my job is not only flying the airplane but to consider commercial aspect i.e. costs, as well. While myself and my fellow pilots do not always have the "big picture", hearing the words "Delays due to staffing shortages" begins to build the perception that our team mates are not holding up their end of the bargain. I've talked to one of your supervisors last summer and from his perspective he understood that his company is offering a fee based service to a customer. Do front line controllers get that though? Does the company get that? By his admission, Nav Canada knows the airlines scheduling requirements well in advance and that helps the plan manpower ahead of time. "Day of" situations like you mention can greatly alter that requirement. Weather issues across the country are known and that's not really what we are talking about here. If the company knows that on a Saturday there will be XYZ number of scheduled flights into a sector and probably have a statistical number to use to consider flights above that, the schedulers schedule in a number of controllers. So how do we get to a short staff position? Legitimate sickness for sure. So how do they compensate? Call out for OT? But what happens when people still don't want to come in or there are people who call in for those "sunny day" book offs? What does a company do? Maybe Nav Canada needs a Reserve list You know, waiting by the phone all day to come in!!


So back to someone else's post...."It was a one off, get it over it"..Well, it's not really a one off. The collective pilot group in this country see's it all the time otherwise the perception would not be there. My impression is that it happens more from YWG west than it does in the east but that is once again pure conjecture. The point is, Nav Canada needs to as you say "listen to the controller group" and properly hire, train and of course pay new controllers and the controller group needs to put pressure on those who do book off for no reason to stop doing it. However one looks at it, it is increasingly difficult for airlines to find profits in today's aviation world. There are certain things Nav Can can control, ie excessive book of rates, proper staffing levels which lead to flight delays and there are things you can't control IE bad weather causing back ups. Both cost the airlines $$$ which in turn....costs me money!

[invertedattitude]

One final note, if it costs the airlines money, and the pilots, rest assured come contract time it costs the controllers money as well.

[Mohun]

I believe the controllers just got a 50% pay out of their sick leave bank at retirement.That may help with attendance/staffing.

[Braun]

That is correct Mohun.

[invertedattitude]

While I would agree with you 95% of the time on that subject CPL, I do argue that there are times efforts are made to find meaningful direct routings, at least around here, certain requests cannot be met without co-ordination, it does take extra effort and time, how much really depends on the situation.

The bottom line is, many en-route controllers blanket "No" to direct routing requests when they are busy, and quite honestly they have no requirement to approve them, if we routings didn't matter airplanes would come flying off JFK and fly in a straight line to London Heathrow, saying direct routings are no big deal is a bit of a stretch, at least where I work.

I don't know where you work CPL, and I brought this up before, but you obviously have some sort of an issue with your job or work environment, sorry for that, some of us do love our jobs AND the people we work with, your posts of late make it sound like you work in the worst place on earth...

[Braun]

God forbid we get short staffed once in a while! I don't see anyone posting about when they get direct stuff or all their requests granted though...odd

Don't let Braun fool you. Directs are far easier for controllers to grant than vectoring someone back onto an airway or their cleared route. In fact, directs are meaningless to controllers vs. filing airways, etc. Conflicts can occur anywhere in the sky, and direct routes are no more or less likely to cause one. So don't think a controller is doing you a favour by granting a direct request. They are used just as often by controllers to solve conflicts as they might be by a crew to save time/miles.

And it's a bit rich to see a newbie like Braun trying to take extra credit for granting directs -- this is the same guy who, in another thread recently, mentioned that his airspace is capped at 13,000 and he talks to each plane "for like 2 minutes".

Don't get too taxed while you're working that 35 mile ring there, hero...

Hero? I didn't think I was being pretentious. Sorry if I hurt your feelings somehow, I don't really see what I said that was misintentioned or incorrect, just stating that the few times that we don't live up to our service standard are less common than the amount of times that we DO go out of our way to accomodate or go ahead and give runways that allow less mileage to fly for aircraft and consequently less time.

Sorry for doing my job.

[cyeg66]

I just wanted to make sure I got the spellings right. Can you boys confirm? I think it's g-o-d c-o-m-p-l-e-x and s-o-u-r g-r-a-p-e-s.
Accommodating traffic requests to go direct to a FAF or DTW or FACF or direct field/threshold apparently doesn't qualify as doing them (read: the airlines) a favour because he works terminal airspace(s)...? Couple questions come to mind: 1) when is an aircrew busier, and 2) at what altitudes are aircraft burning more fuel and subsequently likely to realize greater gain by going direct? Newbie or not, your dismissive tone toward him certainly is unjustified, and your argument, to put it succinctly, smells bad.

[IFRATC]

cpl_atc,
You know, you are right....
I love coming into work and being a total dickhead everyday. I love being lazy, screwing each and every flight I talk too. I take pleasure in literally watching money burn through the engines as I do my job as INEFFICIENTLY as I possibly can. Hey what do I care. My peers won't care either...they are just as F%^KING lazy and unprofessional as I am. There is no pride or respect in the workplace whatsoever...Could not care the least if my peers respect me professionally at all. It is great getting paid to do as little as I possibly can......Aaaahhh NOOOOO Sarcasm idiot. Your comments are retarded and out of line.

IFRATC

[Braun]

Gold stars? What the hell are you talking about? If you are unable to maintain a polite discussion than why don't you just stay out of it...

[cyeg66]

He's not doing them a favour, he's doing his job. There are no gold stars for simply doing your job.

And don't start lecturing me about fuel burns, etc.

And here's another piece of advice: If the aircrew is busy, don't add additional workload by granting things they didn't request. Have you ever sat in a cockpit?

To answer the latter, yes. And to talk about fuel burn, (etc?) you don't think it's pertinent in light of the situation at hand? With omnicience clearly being your strongest suit, you're aware that airlines are most interested in fuel savings during the approach and takeoff phases of flight. More importantly, if you can get off your ivory pulpit long enough to reread what I'd first posted, you'll see that I stated "accomodating traffic requests". Missed that, didn't ya? Oh well, we all make mistakes... Well, we flawed and fallible humans do, anyways. Think of it in 2 ways: If the aircrew is busy and they make a request to go direct <somewhere>, then their workload permits, n'est ce pas? Secondly, rather than fly 60 miles on a STAR to join a 25 mile final only to be #12, (a little effort is implied here on the controllers' behalf, adjusting others in the sequence...), they are fired across to the FAF, "jammed" if you will, and everyone's happy because the airplane flew 40~ish fewer miles (do that in so little time in an enroute environment), saved some gas (hopefully), and spent far less time on one of the critical phases of flight which is the final approach.

I do hear what you're saying about certain parties patting themselves on the back for hard work they "believe" they do... I just don't think that because a guy works only a 35 mile ring that he's working less hard than the guy in the adjacent sector. Sometimes, I think my work is fairly complex, but I remind myself that there are countless (dozens, hundreds, thousands?) of airspaces that are more complex. I just hope others read my posts and (at the very least) think I come across as someone humble and not bitter. Yours don't convey that. That's all.

[IFRATC]

I flew for many years in my previous life. I certainly don't need any lectures from you in airmanship, workload, or cost indexes of fuel burn.
Secondly, based on your last post it seems to me that you so eloquently in your own way acknowledge the fact that Braun is doing his job just fine. Well that would equate to safe, orderly, and expeditious movement of aircraft regardless of the airspace size or structure. Nobody is asking for a gold star for the work they do. Just some respect. Belittling someone the way you have shows no class.
Thirdly, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't!!!!!! Shortening the distance to the FAF helps the aircrew out and the controller. Whats the problem??? Ohhh, workload...Don't accept the direct then...
I certainly do not need to hear your comments about being in the cockpit and the work heavy environment inside lets say 30 miles of touchdown ..blah blah blah. Been there and done it. Boy, aircrews have ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM WITH GETTING A RUNWAY CHANGE lets say inside 30 miles if it would mean a shorter taxi to the gate. Uhhhm, workload??? Changing the loc freq., briefing the missed, inputting new waypoints for the STAR, etc. No complaining now... I don't get it??? If you can't stay ahead of the airplane with a change in clearance don't take it.
It seems like you are arguing just for the sake of arguing.
Most of us take alot of pride in what we do. You know nothing of Braun, but yet infer that he is just a newbie and is somehow inferior to you. "Don't get to taxed working that 35 mile ring there, hero...."
Well, I guess we will "just simlpy keep doing our jobs", while you keep simply feeding us shit...

IFRATC

[high speed exit]

It's funny to hear complaints about delays at this time of year. If you think it's bad now, just wait until summer!

Unfortunately your complaints here fall on deaf ears, and complaining to the ATC doesn't accomplish anything more either. NAVCANADA will only listen when complaints reach the head office in Ottawa, regardless whether the decisions are made there or locally.

Budgets get trimmed every year, staffing gets reduced, and training pales in comparison to what it use to be... and your biggest worry is whether you get FL400??? NC has entered a spiral dive - the effects of which are starting to show. Unfortunately, years of poor decisions will take many more years to recover from.

Good luck and be safe up there!

[Big Pistons Forever]

A while ago in YYR I was holding short number about 17 to go. The only problem was things were not moving very fast (night time but Wx was VFR). Finally a unidentified voice in an obviously annoyed tone said "are you guys short staffed, or are you just taking it easy". The reply "No we are fully staffed tonight" .....