[Peetwo]

Airservices Accelerating towards disaster -

In the space of less than two weeks and under Harfwit's watch we've had...

Via the ABC:

Sydney Airport flight chaos continues as strong winds force more cancellations
By Mark Reddie and staff

Updated 15 Sep 2017, 3:42pmFri 15 Sep 2017, 3:42pm000:4800:00
8
Video: Flight cancellations leave travellers without options (ABC News)

Related Story: Passengers may wait days as high winds close Sydney Airport runways

Strong winds have caused the cancellation of up to 50 domestic flights at Sydney's domestic airport today, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded.

Air Services Australia (ASA) said the conditions are not as bad as yesterday, when wind gusts forced the cancellation of about 100 flights and the airport was reduced to one runway.

There have also been delays of about two and a half hours for some interstate and regional flights.

Flights to Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast are affected.

While conditions are not as bad as expected, ASA said the airport is still trying to accommodate yesterday's backlog, and there are long queues at check-in counters.

"Sydney Airport is still working on a backlog from yesterday, so passengers are advised to check with their airlines if they're travelling both at Sydney and Melbourne because Melbourne will also be experiencing strong winds," ASA spokeswoman Sarah Fulton said.

Regional services to Dubbo, in the state's central-west, and Port Macquarie, on the mid-north coast, have also been cancelled.

US college students Jeanetta Griffin and Breanna Williams face missing a weekend-long surf camp on the Gold Coast due to their morning flight from Sydney to Coolangatta being cancelled.

The women were offered a late afternoon flight on Saturday, but have decided to try to find an alternative way to get to Queensland on Friday so they can attend at least some of the camp.

"It's super disappointing," Ms Williams said.

Nancy Baines was flying to Port Macquarie, on the New South Wales mid-north coast, for her sister-in-law's funeral.



Photo: Jeanetta Griffin and Brianna Williams' flight to the Gold Coast has been cancelled. (ABC News: Sarah Hawke)

The flight was cancelled and Ms Baines and her daughters Cathryn Jost and Jennifer Noakes were told there were no more flights to the region on Friday.

"We're not going to be able to make it. It's so disappointing, but you can't blame the airport," Ms Baines said.

"We're sad not to be there, but what can you do."

Two of the three runways were open this morning.



Photo: Nancy Baines (centre), with her daughters Cathryn Jost and Jennifer Noakes, will miss a funeral on Friday after their flight to Port Macquarie was cancelled. (ABC News: Sarah Hawke)

International flights are not affected, but those transferring to domestic flights are being urged to check noticeboards.

Yesterday, wind gusts of nearly 60 kilometres per hour led to the closure of several runways.

Up to 100 flights were cancelled, leaving Qantas, Virgin, Jetstar, Tiger and REX scrambling to reschedule passengers in and out of Sydney.

Some passengers told the ABC that airlines had said it might take days for them to get another flight.

& then today...

Sydney Airport delays: How air traffic controllers responded to the system fault

Analysis

By national technology reporter Jake Sturmer

Mon 25 Sep 2017, 12:28pm

Photo: The highly skilled controllers responded to the incident in a textbook way. (ABC News: Giulio Saggin)

Related Story: Passenger chaos as software failure causes Sydney Airport delays
Related Story: Life in the clouds: managing stress as an air traffic controller

With all of the chaos on the ground at Sydney Airport, from the skies pilots described "a ghost town".

Rarely do you see such little aviation traffic on a Monday morning in peak hour.

The ABC has been told the fault causing the delays related to a flight planning system.

The information from this feeds into the radar picture on controllers' screens — and without it, they can't tell which plane is which.

But failures in these systems — and the controller/pilot responses —are constantly rehearsed so that when they go down, everyone's prepared.

Video: Thousands of airline passengers are facing delays and some are not happy. (ABC News)

The organisation which runs air traffic control in Australia — Airservices Australia — has undertaken a major cost cutting program, leaving the organisation with 700 fewer staff.

It always maintained its decision would not impact aviation safety or frontline staff, but no doubt the investigation into today's incident will have to consider whether the cuts played a role.

The ABC has previously reported on radar faults in critical plane tracking systems at Sydney Airport.

Last year, the Wide Area Multilateration (WAM) system failed 15 times in one month alone, prompting serious concerns among air traffic controllers.

The WAM is one of several sophisticated surveillance systems which track planes in the sky.

But the failures meant that planes disappeared from one screen and were only visible on a slower updating radar.

Photo: Passengers face long delays at Qantas Domestic Transfer following an air traffic control system failure. (ABC News: David Spicer)

Airservices Australia said it had several levels of redundancy in all of its systems and it is understood the issue has now been fixed.

The failures resulting in today's delays are not believed to be related to the WAM system.

While these delays are an inconvenience for passengers — the highly skilled controllers responded in a textbook way.

They constantly prepare for these situations, and it's a blessing that the failure happened at 5:20am, before the airport's 6:00am curfew was lifted and plane movements hit their peak.

As one controller said: "I've seen one of these before at peak hour and it wasn't pretty. It was probably 10-plus years ago. Failures of [systems] like this are extremely rare."
But when they do — they can have major impacts.



Photo: Passengers on board delayed QF506 were told they could not get off the plane if they had checked baggage. (ABC News: Lexy Hamilton-Smith)

In this case it's major delays — and aviation is underpinned by multiple levels of backup to ensure the failure of one single system cannot cause a catastrophic failure.

Ground delay programs were activated — which means aircraft at other airports like Brisbane and Melbourne remained on the tarmac while movement capacity was limited in Sydney.

For those waiting to start their holidays, it might feel like a pain but it's a far less damaging result than an accident.

Now some 'punters' may believe that there is no coincidence between these two sorry Airservices tales that have occurred under Harfwit's watch but personally I don't believe in coincidences..


P9 edit – I wonder how many of today's inconvenienced passengers would believe in ‘coincidence’ – has they followed Halfwit through estimates? Not too many I’d say.

MTF...P2