Hello everyone,
I have quite a few issues to go over so this will be a lengthy update.
On Monday afternoon (6/1), I sat in a meeting with Troy, John Warwick (TMU), and Derek Adams (A-Area). The focus of this meeting was to discuss the issues of the metering program we are working with today and how can we work together to accomplish a safer way of doing business. So before I go into detail about some of the ideas that were brought up, please have an open mind and understand that we really need to look at the possibility of changing some of our old ways of working traffic in the B-Area during metering.
One of the main issues that I have seen lately and that Troy observed yesterday was that the FLM's are not engaged in the operation enough to make a decision on what is best for sectors 42 and 46 when we are ready to go into metering. It basically boils down to the fact that they just don't know what to do because they have never experienced these daily issues when we meter. The B-Area FLM's don't have the experience that most of us controllers have so making a decision is tough. On the flip side, we have a lot of younger controllers that have only worked sectors 42 and 46 combined for their whole career. So this leads me to the million dollar question during times of metering -"What do we do to improve the overall safety of the NAS while we've had restrictions placed on us such as staffing, training, and mandated sectors being open?" It puts the area in a position of finger pointing and complaining while nothing seems to be getting done.
Well, the time for a change is now so Troy and I decided to have a meeting on Tuesday with Lawson and let him know what we would like to see. Some of you are going to completely disagree with our decision and that is fine. I plan to post this on the local Natca website www.natca-zse.com so that we can discuss the concerns.
Below is a list of issues that we came up with and some alternatives that may help. Please again, keep and open mind as change needs to happen.
1. We requested that everyone attends mandatory breakouts next week in conjunction with MMV airspace briefings that I will talk about later. Lawson should be in attendance along with a TMU rep and the FLM's. Troy and I are going to attend as many as possible to assist in the discussions. If one of us is not there, please send your feedback to Troy or myself directly if you have a concern from the meeting.
2. The fact is, we feel the FLM's don't know really know what decisions to make when they are told by TMU that sector 42 and 46 are going to be RED and plan to meter at XXXX time to SEA. So we asked TMU to help initiate a plan of action and offer solutions such as:
A. Possible reroutes of moving some SEA traffic from the HAWKZ arrival to the CHINS arrival to take care of some of the delays and gate balancing. This would be accomplished from the D-Area.
B. Delay "X" amount of aircraft in the D-Area to help reduce the vectoring or holding over BTG.
C. Oceanic aircraft that come over SEDAR can be rerouted over JAWBN (A-Area would do this, not the B-Area) with prior communication to TMU. This will definitely help from mixing those aircraft with the HAWKZ arrival aircraft.
D. A continuous CFR to SEA from roughly 6:00am to 8:00pm local time.
E. The one that some of you don't want to hear is splitting sector 42 from sector 46. Troy and I agree along with a lot of controllers that I have talked to that splitting the two sectors during metering needs to happen. I'm attaching a snapshot that TMU took two weeks ago on a Thursday night during metering. There were 27 aircraft at the peak time with metering of 3 minute delays on roughly the first 8 or 9 SEA arrivals and 7 minute delays on the last couple. If the sector had been split in the beginning, it would have been easily manageable with only 3 point outs needed to sector 42. Two of those being non vectored boundary runners up to BTG. This is happening on an everyday basis right now throughout the weekdays. Doing nothing and sitting back complaining is not the answer!!
1. I don't want to hear that NOBODY wants the sectors split. That is completely false as I have talked with the other side of the crew from me that splitting the sectors was the best thing to do and they have been doing it more frequently.
2. I keep hearing that if it's split it causes too many point outs (I feel a lot of that is technique because there is plenty of space to the southeast of sector 46 to start the turns for the delay). Or, if you are running 5 or more minute delays, forget the vectoring and hold or assign turns at BTG.
3. Splitting the sectors will definitely help with frequency congestion which I feel is more of a safety issue than making point outs.
4. Not having to coordinate and work the oceanic traffic helps when volume and metering exist with having the sectors split.
With all of these issues that I have brought up, we all need to work together as a team for the safety of the NAS. I'm sure I'm going to take some heat from some of you. It's my job to look at every possible area of concern and help determine the best solution to the problem. I am open to listen to each one of your concerns and again, this will be posted on the local website www.natca-zse.com under B-Area updates. Feel free to voice your concern but as always, please be professional at all times.
MMV AIRSPACE - Next week on June 11th, P80 will take over the MMV airspace. Eric Tandberg will be briefing everyone. I will be putting out a reminder about it again next week and also what each of you will have to do to your prefsets for your low altitude map and any maps that you have saved associated with sector 6. It shouldn't take more than 5 minutes but each of your FLM's will give you time to take care of this prior to plugging in next Thursday.
ODO - OPPOSITE DIRECTION OPERATIONS - Apparently I have a meeting next Tuesday with RDM tower about some issues with ODO. I currently am not aware of any issues that the B-Area has had or that RDM is having. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns so that I can discuss those with RDM next week.
STAFFING - Most of you have heard by now that Lloyd is going to be out for at least two months for his surgery. I haven't had a chance to meet with management on this since I just found out when I was leaving work yesterday. Good luck on your surgery ZZ and heal up fast.
It seems like it has been forever but welcome back April. We missed you!!
TRAINING - We need our developmental's and transferring CPC's training all the time. Management is aware of my request to call in overtime to accomplish this. If you see opportunities where training should be taking place but nothing is being done, please talk to the FLM and let me know as well.
CONGRATULATIONS - Congrats to Whitney Parker as he just completed Stage 3 training in the back and will report to the floor next week on Crew 6. Good Job!!
That's all I have right now!!
Rick Lund
B-Area Rep