Air Traffic Control Issues

[Brissy1]

²

A take off every three minutes compared to every 90 seconds at Heathrow

Don't know where your 3 min comes from; total 80/hour in Sydney, av. 40/hour take-offs = every 90 seconds capacity.
But if you're talking about ACTUAL takeoffs, it's just that Sydney actually doesn't have the same demand, and has more capacity than it uses; demand midmorning, midafternoon, and late-ish evenings is lower, sometimes much lower, than 80/hour capacity.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

²

Don't know where your 3 min comes from; total 80/hour in Sydney, av. 40/hour take-offs = every 90 seconds capacity.
But if you're talking about ACTUAL takeoffs, it's just that Sydney actually doesn't have the same demand, and has more capacity than it uses; demand midmorning, midafternoon, and late-ish evenings is lower, sometimes much lower, than 80/hour capacity.

well… whatever the ‘capacity’ it wasn’t happening today. I set the timer on the phone… it was actually a lot longer than 3 mins cause we waited for two aircraft, both out past the headlands, coming in to land. No takeoffs in between.

 

[kamchatsky]

ATC delays at SYD continuing ….. Time for QF VA JQ to consolidate their MEL BNE flights on a regular basis. QF should bring more A330 for domestic ops.

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/passengers-at-sydney-airport-set-to-face-fresh-travel-delays-as-staffing-issues-continue/news-story/7e5bea0de6ef0882bc07a0df3650945c

 

[MEL_Traveller]

ATC delays at SYD continuing ….. Time for QF VA JQ to consolidate their MEL BNE flights on a regular basis. QF should bring more A330 for domestic ops.

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/passengers-at-sydney-airport-set-to-face-fresh-travel-delays-as-staffing-issues-continue/news-story/7e5bea0de6ef0882bc07a0df3650945c

How does VA consolidate? no larger aircraft I suppose they, or QF/JQ would argue it’s unfair?

 

[AuSammy]

How does VA consolidate? no larger aircraft I suppose they, or QF/JQ would argue it’s unfair?

Don’t need larger aircraft to turn 3 flights at 60% occupancy into two flights.

 

[I love to travel]

Don’t need larger aircraft to turn 3 flights at 60% occupancy into two flights.

Every MEL to BNE flight I have been on in the last 2 months has been almost full

 

[Melburnian1]

Don’t need larger aircraft to turn 3 flights at 60% occupancy into two flights.

Load factors overall tend to be for most major routes in the 80 to 90 per cent range, occasionally greater.

Possibly during the middle of the day and very late on some nights may be examples when some flights have substantially fewer percentages of seats occupied.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Every MEL to BNE flight I have been on in the last 2 months has been almost full

Same for MEL-SYD! Only one flight this year has been like ‘so so’ with maybe 70%. The rest have been one or two spare seats (QF).

When I was commuting on VA - not even peak flights - they were almost always full!

The main reason is that they cancel one flight and all of a sudden everything else is chockers!

 

[Saab34]

We are also running the triangle without that extra competitor, we had TigerAir for all those years, then Rex replaced that capacity, then that all got taken away.

It’s hard to get a seat at a reasonable price (under $250 each way) last minute especially non mid week days.

 

[AuSammy]

Same for MEL-SYD! Only one flight this year has been like ‘so so’ with maybe 70%. The rest have been one or two spare seats (QF).

When I was commuting on VA - not even peak flights - they were almost always full!

The main reason is that they cancel one flight and all of a sudden everything else is chockers!

So effectively they are already “consolidating” to some extent. Cancelling flights and moving passengers to other flights.

 

[dajop]

Quite amazing when you look at it, on some days, approximately every 12 mins between 6am and 10pm there's a flight departing Sydney for Melbourne, and a flight arriving every 11mins between 7:25am and 10:25pm.... so basically a Melbourne movement every 6 mins.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

So effectively they are already “consolidating” to some extent. Cancelling flights and moving passengers to other flights.

Nope.

Cancelled for engineering, bad weather, crew member reporting sick, etc

Not ‘planned’ cancellations to consolidate flights.

They just have to move them as per their contract of carriage to the next available flight(s)

 

[Harrison_133]

ATC delays at SYD continuing …..

Also weather related ATC delays into MEL tonight.

They just have to move them as per their contract of carriage to the next available flight(s)

Which is easier said than done when they're running at high load factors, particularly on the triangle.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Which is easier said than done when they're running at high load factors, particularly on the triangle.

Especially on VA with their tiny business class cabins and super cheap upgrades which are processed the day before

At least QF seems to hold some seats back for on departure upgrades like at the Qantas club.

 

[RooFlyer]

Article in the Oz on-line about ATC hours, overtime and fatigue levels, including some real data about one shift, which generated this graphic.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/extreme-overtime-for-air-traffic-controllers-revealed-amid-sydney-airport-safety-fears/news-story/c29af588018f83d5151fd4b014cbcbc1

The data, shared anonymously with The Australian and verified by two Airservices employees, supported claims by union Civil Air that the government organisation is relying on overtime to keep control towers and operations centres going.

You'd need to read the article to get the full gist.