Just wondering how things are fairing in the ATC world? With the airlines being hit as hard as they are I'm curious to see how things are going on your end ?


Thanks for all that you do..

Lots of little changes happening, and we definitely went from understaffed to overstaffed but it's unclear to what degree yet. We are probably a week behind the rest of you. Traffic counts on Monday/Tuesday will probably dictate the next step.

It would be the absolute dumbest decision to layoff ATC at this point. We've been working soooooo hard to staff our units in the past ten years and to throw it all away for a temporary issue is ridiculous. There is always a possibility it happens but my perspective is that we should just use the extra ressources while we can to finish projects that are lagging behind or approve extra leave slots. I don't think we are there yet but it might happen, would be a huge mistake though.

There are about 2100 controllers across the country. NavCan invests a lot of money in the training of these controllers. Laying off said controllers would be a very shortsighted move by NavCan.

Besides, there are a lot of steps the company can take before laying off employees.

Controlling > Piloting

Hence pilots laid off but controllers not.

Easy to train a pilot. Very difficult to successfully train a controller.

That’s ironic. I know a lot of controllers who never made it as pilots. In fact most.

whipline wrote: ↑Mon Aug 31, 2020 12:11 am That’s ironic. I know a lot of controllers who never made it as pilots. In fact most.

Are you saying that most controllers tried to be pilots and failed? I call BS. I actually work with a hand full of people who are commercial pilots, instructors, medevac, jump plane, bird dog, vintage wings, all on their days off. The remainder (overwhelming majority) including me never tried to be a professional pilot.

What makes becoming a controller harder is that you have a limited time frame within a certain budget allocated to each individual to meet a certain level of standards and progression for the phase of training you're in. In civilian flight school you can keep paying out of your own pocket until you get it right. If you need 10 more hours of flight time to perfect some maneuvers that you're having troubles with you can dish out another several hundred bucks to do so.

There are lots of commercial airline pilots who fail ATC.

Everyone has their own niche.

Looks like Navcanada will announce trainee are being laid off soon....

clr4takeoff wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:14 am Looks like Navcanada will announce trainee are being laid off soon....

Not all but most trainees have been laid off permanently. Training is suspended for the foreseeable future. Other major organizational changes are coming.

Braun wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:00 pm Not all but most trainees have been laid off permanently. Training is suspended for the foreseeable future. Other major organizational changes are coming.

Hopefully this doesn't have the same kind of long term impact that the hiring freeze by the government in the late 80's had.

kevenv wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:10 pm

Braun wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 12:00 pm Not all but most trainees have been laid off permanently. Training is suspended for the foreseeable future. Other major organizational changes are coming.

Hopefully this doesn't have the same kind of long term impact that the hiring freeze by the government in the late 80's had.

It will.

https://www.navcanada.ca/EN/Pages/NR-40-2020.aspx

Most trainees are gone. Halifax and Winnipeg FICs are gone. Aeronautical studies will commence on a few of the smaller control towers, namely YMM and YJN, and at a bunch of FSS/RAAS locations as well. Basically, there is a good chance those facilities will close once the studies are done.

Sad news for all those affected. Wish them good luck.

YCG (Castlegar) FSS rumored to be closing also

Most of these locations are FSS/RAAS. Red Deer was supposed to get an ATCT this November. Don’t know if that is still going ahead.

Aeronautical studies will be launched to assess levels of service in Saint-Jean QC, Castlegar BC, Churchill MB, High Level AB, Peace River AB, Brandon MB, Fort Nelson BC, Fort St John BC, Inuvik NWT, Lloydminster AB, Norman Wells NWT, Port Hardy BC, Prince Albert SK, Red Deer AB, Sept-Îles QC, Dawson Creek BC, Fort McMurray AB, Flin Flon MB, The Pas MB, Buffalo Narrows SK, Kuujjuarapik QC, Blanc Sablon QC, Natashquan QC, and Sydney NS. The terms of reference for these studies will be posted on navcanada.ca in the coming weeks.

Terrible. This will take decades to recover from.

Navcanada CEO words:

Regrettably, today, 200 permanent positions in management and the represented ranks were eliminated across many of our departments. We also laid off the majority of our students in ATC and FSS and will be closing two flight information centres - Winnipeg and Halifax.

We also announced Level of Service reviews of five flight service stations, one tower and for 10 RAAS locations in the context of an overall review of RAAS assignments. Further, we will be reviewing the midnight closure for 10 flight service stations.

When we look at these decisions and the total number of impacted NAV CANADA employees, more than 720 employees will have accepted early retirement incentives, be declared surplus, received laid off notices, or will have had their terms ended.

While we hope that these steps are all that we will be taking in the groups affected, additional reviews are being conducted across the Company in remaining groups to appropriately respond to these new realities of air traffic activity as part of our phased approach.

Sad , very sad days for the industry....

Controllers cant be far behind at this rate.

I don’t think any controllers will get laid off, not IFR controllers anyways. Nav Canada offered early retirement to controllers a few months ago and they had to stop because too many were taking it which left the company even shorter staffed than it was before.

Also, there are a lot of people still employed at Nav Canada that are at risk. Laying off all the trainees made the entire training department at the company redundant.

BoardManPaid wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 6:22 pm Controllers cant be far behind at this rate.

Doubt it. If anything they’ll shuffle around personnel to staff critically short units. I seriously doubt they’ll be layoffs. Salary cuts maybe.

wordstwice wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 7:01 pm I don’t think any controllers will get laid off, not IFR controllers anyways. Nav Canada offered early retirement to controllers a few months ago and they had to stop because too many were taking it which left the company even shorter staffed than it was before.

Also, there are a lot of people still employed at Nav Canada that are at risk. Laying off all the trainees made the entire training department at the company redundant.

Did they not go through all ERI phases they initially planned? When did they stop?

Don’t quote me but I recall they were about the start the last phase and didn’t because enough people took advantage. I was right beside someone who was waiting for that phase to go into action and was willing to take it but never got the offer.

wordstwice wrote: ↑Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:50 pm Don’t quote me but I recall they were about the start the last phase and didn’t because enough people took advantage. I was right beside someone who was waiting for that phase to go into action and was willing to take it but never got the offer.

They did not offer Phases 4 or 5 to ATC because they did not want to offer it to everyone that would have been available in those phases, afraid that if they did, too many from one place would leave them too short.

Trainee here that got cut yesterday. It’s a painful time, and the gov needs to step in finally to provide more aid. When air traffic recovers there isn’t going to be enough staff. It’s all rather sudden and horrendous.

And the controllers are going to eventually be cut too I think. I imagine they will reshuffle first and than decide. They cut 200 people in one day...probably will do it in bits and pieces.

VFRDreamer wrote: ↑Wed Sep 23, 2020 11:32 am Trainee here that got cut yesterday. It’s a painful time, and the gov needs to step in finally to provide more aid. When air traffic recovers there isn’t going to be enough staff. It’s all rather sudden and horrendous.

And the controllers are going to eventually be cut too I think. I imagine they will reshuffle first and than decide. They cut 200 people in one day...probably will do it in bits and pieces.

Really sorry you got laid off. It sucks. No one wants this obviously. That being said I would be very, very surprised in controllers came to be cut. They will have to transfer and reoptimize units first. Maybe after that. Hopefully revenues will recover a bit before we get there. good luck, I hope this thing turns around and some of you can get back one day.