Narrative:

The whole session was a disaster and I know center was re routing because of gate closures but they should be helping themselves. I was getting supposedly one route from the northwest (landr/sayge). I'm having to take guys on contact and turning them 40 degrees away from the airport to put them behind the weather into DR2's airspace. Honestly the gate should have been closed. I started off chasing a couple mile gap to feed 16R due to downwinds (cutting off my 16L final). Then I started vectoring hard north into DR2 airspace. At that point changing to a single route north to go straight into DR2's airspace (direct gill). But as the center started feeding me that route they never came off the sayge route. So now I have 2 routes with only 1 route to final and it was now about a mile in diameter. So; everybody is on instant vectors. I take a hand off on aircraft X. What I think is aircraft X I acknowledged I issue aircraft X present heading for weather and sequence down to 130. Me and my coordinator (ci) are coordinating satellite traffic I'm working. Aircraft X checks in and says somebody else took that and so I issued the same clearance. Aircraft Y took the first clearance and read back his call sign which I missed. At that point I was the last swiss cheese to catch it. But I had no other known traffic and didn't inquire. A moment goes by and aircraft Y says he needs to deviate and I ask who? At that point I see a 'C' tag just in trail of aircraft X and it's aircraft Y. I ask his altitude he tells me 183 and I immediately turn him 290 and maintain 180. I got back and descend aircraft X down to 130 as he leaves 176. They were about 2 miles apart and still on a center tag 10 miles in my airspace. I will say I missed the hear back read back on call sign but I wasn't expecting another [same company] let alone similar sounding call signs. See everyone coming towards are gate is already full data block and white and that is one of a few times that has ever happened but usually they call for manual hand off and give me the call sign at least (not just switch the guy with a 70kt overtake and only 5 miles when they are required to have 10!). After that situation I continued to tell my ci I'm not taking handoffs when they are inside our boundary at FL250. He tells them to spin and 2 still make it on my frequency and I send them back and a couple seconds later I'm advised by either my ci or the supervisor to just work them. [Both of them are] minimum fuel. So I put them on vectors across final and expedite their descent and point them out to the appropriate sectors and give them to final. At that point my ci comes out and opens the east side and I work the west before I go on break.there should be a culture where denver center needs to know what unable is. There were numerous times in this session where I'm getting aircraft call me 10 miles inside my airspace when I told them unable to take these aircraft and it is happening a lot. If I don't take a handoff you can't come barreling in my airspace. These planes are out of position and 8k feet above the profile on the short side with weather and they are telling me they can't spin them (after we told them unable 15 miles ago). I'm all for helping provide a service but when I have to get airplanes down from 25k; 25 miles from the airport what are we doing? Also; in a situation like that; it should have been an east/west split the whole time just because the was deviations in both gates and so my scan is now stretching my airspace plus 2 departure airspaces. Also I wish maybe our facility would set a precedent that pilots have to brunt some of the responsibility when it comes to listening for their own call sign or the company doesn't put 3 out of 4 digits right next to each other landing at the same airport.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A D01 TRACON Controller reports of ZDV ARTCC transferring communication of aircraft while still on a C tag to Denver Approach control. Similar call signs did not help the situation. Weather was a factor which lead to traffic being a complex scenario. The Controller stated ZDV does this often during this scenario.

Narrative: The whole session was a disaster and I know center was re routing because of gate closures but they should be helping themselves. I was getting supposedly one route from the northwest (LANDR/SAYGE). I'm having to take guys on contact and turning them 40 degrees away from the airport to put them behind the weather into DR2's airspace. Honestly the gate should have been closed. I started off chasing a couple mile gap to feed 16R due to downwinds (cutting off my 16L final). Then I started vectoring hard north into DR2 airspace. At that point changing to a single route north to go straight into DR2's airspace (direct Gill). But as the center started feeding me that route they never came off the SAYGE route. So now I have 2 routes with only 1 route to final and it was now about a mile in diameter. So; everybody is on instant vectors. I take a hand off on Aircraft X. What I think is Aircraft X I acknowledged I issue Aircraft X present heading for weather and sequence down to 130. Me and my Coordinator (CI) are coordinating satellite traffic I'm working. Aircraft X checks in and says somebody else took that and so I issued the same clearance. Aircraft Y took the first clearance and read back his call sign which I missed. At that point I was the last Swiss cheese to catch it. But I had no other known traffic and didn't inquire. A moment goes by and Aircraft Y says he needs to deviate and I ask who? At that point I see a 'C' tag just in trail of Aircraft X and it's Aircraft Y. I ask his altitude he tells me 183 and I immediately turn him 290 and maintain 180. I got back and descend Aircraft X down to 130 as he leaves 176. They were about 2 miles apart and still on a center tag 10 miles in my airspace. I will say I missed the hear back read back on call sign but I wasn't expecting another [Same company] let alone similar sounding call signs. See everyone coming towards are gate is already full data block and white and that is one of a few times that has ever happened but usually they call for manual hand off and give me the call sign at least (not just switch the guy with a 70kt overtake and only 5 miles when they are required to have 10!). After that situation I continued to tell my CI I'm not taking handoffs when they are inside our boundary at FL250. He tells them to spin and 2 still make it on my frequency and I send them back and a couple seconds later I'm advised by either my CI or the supervisor to just work them. [Both of them are] minimum fuel. So I put them on vectors across final and expedite their descent and point them out to the appropriate sectors and give them to final. At that point my CI comes out and opens the east side and I work the west before I go on break.There should be a culture where Denver Center needs to know what unable is. There were numerous times in this session where I'm getting aircraft call me 10 miles inside my airspace when I told them unable to take these aircraft and it is happening a lot. If I don't take a handoff you can't come barreling in my airspace. These planes are out of position and 8k feet above the profile on the short side with weather and they are telling me they can't spin them (after we told them unable 15 miles ago). I'm all for helping provide a service but when I have to get airplanes down from 25k; 25 miles from the airport what are we doing? Also; in a situation like that; it should have been an east/west split the whole time just because the was deviations in both gates and so my scan is now stretching my airspace plus 2 departure airspaces. Also I wish maybe our facility would set a precedent that pilots have to brunt some of the responsibility when it comes to listening for their own call sign or the company doesn't put 3 out of 4 digits right next to each other landing at the same airport.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.