It's turbulent times for the aviation industry as it struggles with rising fuel prices, maintenance issues and Qantas' near mid air disaster. Now a shortage of air traffic controllers has alarm bells ringing with claims large chunks of Australian airspace have been left unsupervised.
Transcript
KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: It's been a turbulent time for the aviation industry as it confronts spiralling fuel prices, staff cuts, pay disputes and less than a week ago, a serious mid-air drama for Qantas.
Now, simmering in the background, is a dispute raising fresh concerns about the safety of Australia's skies.
There's a stand off between the country's 900 air traffic controllers and their employer: Air Services Australia. It comes in a context of a troubling global shortage of air traffic controllers.
Over the past eight months, due to staff shortages, whole sectors of airspace have been left unsupervised for hours at a time.
Deborah Cornwall reports.
GREG RUSSELL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, AIR SERVICES AUSTRALIA: There is a small group here that are acting in renegade fashion and disrupting Australia's aviation system.
BEN SANDILANDS, AVIATION ANAYLST: If you have a bad night as an air traffic controller, you can actually kill people.
DEBORAH CORNWALL, REPORTER: Close to 9,000 aircraft cross the continent everyday; monitored by Australian air traffic controllers who watch over more than one tenth of the Earth's surface. But in the last eight months, a huge spike in sick leave among air traffic controllers has forced service shutdowns in critical posts across the country, leaving large chunks of Australian sky unsupervised for hours at a time.
This has never happened before in Australia. We have a complete failure of air traffic control coverage in Australia at critical moments around major cities. It's unprecedented and it's unsafe.
GREG RUSSELL: Now, clearly this is not an ideal situation - it's not. But it is safe.
DEBORAH CORNWALL: The air safety regulator CASA has backed air services assurances, insisting the procedures are in place to manage the extra risk. But traffic controllers say uncontrolled air space means pilots are left to fend for themselves to avoid mid-air collisions. And that means they are effectively flying blind.
PETER MCGUANE, CIVIL AIR: It generally only happens in third world countries. I don't think that members of the travelling public who fly, in many circumstances - in most circumstances - wouldn't be aware that they're actually transiting through that airspace without the benefit of air traffic controllers separating their aircraft. It's unsupervised airspace.
DEBORAH CORNWALL: It's telling that domestic airlines have so far largely avoided flying in unsupervised airspace, choosing instead to divert flights at great cost and disruption. But foreign carriers don't always have that option, and in the past week, there's been a growing chorus of complaint from airlines, pilots and even the world's governing aviation body, ICAO.
LAWRIE COX, FEDERATION OF AIR PILOTS: Airlines are now starting to pressure our members into flying into that unsupervised space. At the same time, we have foreign aircraft flying in our airspace now, closing on each other at very fast speeds, expecting them to understand the radio positioning and visual lookout at each aircraft. We don't have minutes, hours - we have less than seconds when the aircraft approach each other. That's the risk factors that we find totally unacceptable.
DEBORAH CORNWALL: At the heart of the dispute is a worldwide shortage of air traffic controllers. Air Services Australia admits it's been caught short. And CEO Greg Russell says its new state-of-the-art training academy is now gearing up to double recruit numbers.
But the first bumper class of graduates won't be ready for work until 2011. With close to half the country's traffic controllers due to retire within the next five to 10 years, it's a race against time.
GREG RUSSELL: We've got to more than double the intake of air traffic controllers each year now for the next five years in order for us to overcome what is an ageing workforce problem.
DEBORAH CORNWALL: Union boss Peter McGuan says it's been a looming crisis on Air Services' radar for years. But instead of ramping up training earlier, traffic controllers have been pressured into routine overtime to cover the shortfall.
PETER MCGUANE: People are really sick and tired of being constantly rung up on their days off in order to come in to perform additional duties to support the system.
BEN SANDILANDS: The controllers are actually very concerned and I've spoken to a number of them about what's happening to their lives, their families and their professional responsibilities, because it is illegal for them to present for work when they're fatigued.
DEBORAH CORNWALL: Greg Russell admits the heavy reliance on overtime is just one of a host of problems he inherited when he took over as boss at Air Services Australia three years ago with the brief to reform a deeply dysfunctional organisation.
GREG RUSSELL: When I arrived, one of the things that I asked to see was a current workforce plan, a plan that told us where our problem areas were. No such plan existed. We didn't think about the future. We didn't plan for it. And we're now in better shape.
DEBORAH CORNWALL: In the fog of a current wages war by air traffic controllers, this is a crisis unlikely to be solved anytime soon. It's perhaps a measure of just how serious the problem is that both Air Services Australia and the Transport Minister Anthony Albanese have stopped short of accusing the union of a deliberate campaign to ramp up sick leave and sabotage air safety. But the frustration is obvious.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, TRANSPORT MINISTER: No one would want people turning up to work if they're not fit to work. But what we have seen is an uncharacteristic spike in both sick leave being taken and also people not being available for work.
GREG RUSSELL: This organisation has a history of these sorts of disruptions and events occurring. Every year, we go into a wage negotiation. This one is no different, except that it's more intense.
DEBORAH CORNWALL: It's hard to credit this spike in sick leave as a happy accident for the union, isn't it?
PETER MCGUANE: The workforce is less than 1,000 nationally, and I think individuals have come to their own conclusions to say that, "Well, for years the system has relied on overtime. I can't see any light at the end of the tunnel."
DEBORAH CORNWALL: The union warns that unless salaries are hiked up a whopping 30 per cent, on par with their international colleagues, there'll be a further exodus of staff.
PETER MCGUANE: We see it can only potentially get worse if people continue - if the trickle overseas turns into a flow, then the air traffic control system in this country will be in crisis.
DEBORAH CORNWALL: For now, Air Services is trying desperately to remain upbeat, adamant the immediate shortfall should be fixed next month with 17 new recruits. But the union says that number falls far short of what's really needed, and no-one is pretending there's any real relief in sight for at least the next few years.
PETER MCGUANE: They're not easy jobs reforming organisations like this. I don't think I fully understood just how difficult it could be some days, but nevertheless, there is a way through this.
KERRY O'BRIEN: We look forward to seeing it unfold. That report from Deborah Cornwall.
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31st July 2008, 09:35 PM
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