ABOVE: Staffing shortages continue to impact the airport, despite endeavours to address the issue
Gloucestershire (Staverton) airport has issued an update surrounding the provision of ATC staffing, recognising that while it has been a “challenging year in ATC at Gloucestershire,” it hopes that its “planning and hard work” to recruit and train new personnel “will soon mean the end of any re-occurrences”.
As reported in May, the airport commenced a period of reduced hours of operation in June, along with scheduled days where no ATC cover was to be provided at all. “Nobody wanted any days without an ATC service but through planning and hard work the ‘indemnity days’ are proving a success and allowing many home based operators to continue to fly safely,” stated the airport, adding: “Hopefully there are more of these days behind us than ahead”.
Gloucestershire Airport did also think about the possibility of providing an Air Ground Communication Service on the non-ATC days “but for a host of understandable regulatory requests it was felt that this wouldn’t benefit [Gloucestershire’s] operators sufficiently to implement at this time,” although the concept has not been ruled out for future consideration.
“Oh that it were simple enough that we could just recruit and train but it is a very competitive market in ATC at the moment and we can only train a finite number of controllers at once,” explained Chris Brian, manager of air traffic services (MATS) at Gloucestershire airport.
Nevertheless, two trainee ATCOs “have made great starts and have provisional unit endorsements” booked for October, he added, noting that these validation boards must also be scheduled around the CAA inspectors’ busy schedule. Two more trainees are due to join the team in December, as well as an ex-military controller who is looking to join next June.
Addressing wider ongoing issues of “staffing challenges in management, engineering and with ATSAs,” Brian added that further recruitment has also been taking place, concluding: “most importantly our manpower plan for the next three rolling years is up and running and doing exactly what it says on the tin”.
IMAGE: GLOUCESTER AIRPORT
