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Airservices Australia CEO Jason Harfield says there is no “magic number” for how many air traffic control staff are needed to cover Australia, and that ATC staffing issues have less to do with raw numbers than where those numbers fall.
Speaking to reporters in Melbourne, Harfield said that while in a perfect world Airservices would need 800 qualified air traffic controllers, the fact that it currently has around 900 does not necessarily mean the entire system is covered.
“We sometimes fall into thinking if we have a magic number that everything’s OK, but it’s like anything to do with staffing and humans, it never stays static,” he said.
“That difference looks good on paper, but in the real world, you know, some people are on long service leave, some people are on maternity leave, people lose their medical qualification … but also, that big number doesn’t break down to these five [people] that are qualified for [one] position, ten qualified for [another] position. And if somebody [in one position] isn’t available, that has a bigger impact.
“So we sort of tried to stop focusing on the number, but also, what’s the service outcome? Are we providing the right level of service? What’s the resourcing required and the flexibility required, for instance? That’s not a numbers game.”
Harfield said that the controversial retirement incentive scheme that saw 138 employees leave Airservices, at least 124 of whom were operational ATCs, had contributed to staffing issues, but stressed that Airservices had “been very careful” with the scheme and limited it to people who were due to retire within the next few years regardless.
According to Harfield, the decision was made in 2021 to keep trainees flowing through what was an aging ATC workforce; however, traffic came back more quickly than expected.
“They had to be 56 or over on the first of July 2021. So they would have been 59 this year, and our historic retirement age has usually been about 58, so they would have all retired this year,” he said.
“We were careful that they were people that were due to retire, [so we wouldn’t] dump them and then try and get them back, like the rest of the industry is trying to do.”
Airservices has said it is continuing to invest in enhancing its service resilience by recruiting trainees, with 80 new air traffic controllers due in the 2024 financial year. The organisation has also partnered with Airways International to send trainees to Christchurch for TotalControl simulator instruction.
