21/07/2023
AERIALNOSERVICES UPPERCUMBUCCA SHOCKED AND APPALLED TO DISCOVER IT IS THEY WHO ARE MEANT TO BE PROVIDING THE SERVICE
Thomas Tibason, a career air traffic controller with over two months experience in unnecessarily delaying millions of passengers, has today issued a statement to media on behalf of the ATC union.
“We are shocked to learn that it is us, the controllers of the nation, who are meant to be providing a service and not, as previously believed, the pilots providing the service of keeping us employed.” Explained Mr Tibason as he and his colleagues handed out slow-downs and RTA’s while simultaneously interlocking their toes.
Mr Tibason, who had originally scheduled a media conference for 0900 but delayed it 0945 at the last minute prior to yelling at our reporters for being more than thirty seconds early, explained the expectation with regards to arriving on-time.
“If we issue you with a crossing time for the STAR for example, we expect you to be there on time, and if you are on time – you can expect vectors. We will also occasionally ask you for your ETA at a particular waypoint even though you have been identified for the last three hours, so that we can disregard your estimate and provide you with an unachievable crossing time fifteen minutes later.” Said the controller who had just returned from his 15th union meeting since signing on an hour ago.
Since the opening of Uppercumbucca Wests’ new parallel runway, ASU has suffered a funding shortfall, resulting in a shortage of controllers available to staff the slots needed to effectively utilise the new runway. In addition, they have also been unable to effectively control the flow of traffic operating on the legacy runway, due to the fact that they don’t want to.
“As a short-term solution, we will be implementing a new traffic management strategy – SODSROPS, or ‘Simultaneous Opposite Direction Single Runway Operations’. Said the man from an income tax bracket much higher than our reporters.
“The concept behind SODSROPS and associated air traffic flow management is simple; we have two runways at Uppercumbucca West but at any given moment, we only have the capability of operating on one due to separation requirements. To achieve this, we close the other runway with no notice, then we depart and arrive all traffic in opposite directions on one runway. This is the most efficient way to delay flights and ensures we have time to go to the lunchroom to lick the dried food off the microwave door.” He said as he reverted the airspace to class G for smoko.
For a polarising view on this topic, the Herald reached out to the pilot union, AFAP (Almost For All Pilots). Their spokesperson, Mr Enta Prize-Bargaining offered his insights.
“The air traffic control service in this country is going down like a home-build submersible.” Said the man in charge of representing pilots of three different operators that are currently paying below minimum wage.
“We are seeing costly delays associated with the provision of traffic separation by ASU who are simply offering no explanation for their subpar service. It’s simple – ASU need to pick-up their game and provide the service they are paid to do, which is not to divert flights around TIBA airspace because the controller is too hungover to work following a late night of drinking rum and feeding Paracetamol to seagulls.” Continued Mr Prize-Bargaining who somewhat ironically was on his way home to be bossed around by his wife.
When questioned about aging software that was originally designed to operate on MS DOS, Mr Tibason explained that if the questions were to continue, the GAH would have to apply for a new interview COBT as the current timeslot had now expired.
More to come on further delays after the promulgation of this article.
