On Saturday, 8th August,passengers travelling out of Sydney Airport found themselves confronting significant delays.
For the most part, the crisis affected those travelling on the Qantas Network, though a number of flights covered by Virgin were also impacted.
According to a report from 7NEWS Sydney on the evening of the 8th, around 95 Qantas flights were impacted including 25 QantasLink services, as well as 18 Virgin flights.
As a witness put it: “Passengers left waiting for an average of 60 minutes, some for far longer. You spend a lot of money and all you do is wait in a line here. It's frustrating.”
According to a statement from airport management, air traffic control firm Airservices Australia was managing reduced air traffic movements that were expected to impact flights network-wide and result in delays.
The company assured the public that it already enacted air traffic-flow management measures, including spacing out departures due to an ongoing staffing shortage.
Alleviating a crisis
For now, Sydney Airport and its operational partners have put a number of measures into play to decrease the negative impact of the staffing issue.
To date, these have been
- Departure spacing on the part of Airservices Australia. This involved the enforcement of strict spacing intervals and ground delay programs to manage safety with reduced tower numbers;
- Worker fatigue is finally being given priority. Indeed, a significant increase in short-notice sick leave and chronic roster constraints have prompted a harder scrutiny on measures related to workers’ welfare; and
- Government pressure is now being applied. In this case, Federal transport authorities are demanding formal explanations and immediate action plans from Airservices Australia to restore operational stability.
It’s really a people problem
The key issue here does not lie in infrastructure; there is a serious lack of competent human resources at Sydney Airport, especially after the pandemic.
If we go by what Airlines for Australia and New Zealand (A4ANZ) declared at the height of the issue, Airservices Australia was unable to roster enough air traffic controllers over the weekend.
According to A4ANZ chief executive Stephen Beckett: “We’ve just had three days in a row [where] Australia has not been able to roster enough people in the air traffic control centres.They continue to tell us they have recruited enough people to staff the tower. If so, why do we have these persistent problems?.”
Beckett went on to say that the problem in the tower has been going on for years; something that should have been dealt with a long time ago as Australian travellers are aware that any delays would have been easily prevented.
He concluded by saying: “While safety is currently being maintained, it is throwing the schedules out the window and impacting the travelling public. Many people are missing international connections and vital connections to regional Australia.”
