Narrative:

Position worked; radar assist. L-side (monitor position) position was in use at this sector as well. I relieved someone else so the event was already in progress. Weather to the north; northwest and south of the sector. Almost every aircraft needed to deviate. Along with all the other usual traffic this sector sees; we were working iad inbounds from ZBW; bwi departures going to the northeast and beyond; and lga arrivals (all abnormal). There is no way this sector should ever have this many aircraft; especially when 85% of them were climbing and descending. All sectors/facilities that border sie had to be hold their traffic because there was too much saturation. Tmu (traffic management unit) set this up for failure by essentially aiming all traffic at the sie VOR. The area supervisor told me that when tmu wanted to run the lga traffic through this sector; they responded by saying that was not a good idea; yet the lga traffic ran anyway. Supervisor also told me that the area was never told there would be multiple bwi departures over sie; so tmu agreed to something that this sector sees very seldom; yet nothing was communicated. I observed more present position holds issued in one session than I have in my almost 10 years as a controller combined. To say tmu dropped the ball is a gross understatement. Teach tmu to say 'no' if a sector is saturated; and listen to the supervisors on the floor. If there will be abnormal traffic; give an accurate number instead of a low one to soften the blow. Telling the sector to expect 6 iad inbounds from ZBW when in reality there were at least 15 is not cool. They have tsds (traffic situational displays) and know how to count; so there is no excuse. Tmu needs to do a much better job in communicating the plan so that the sectors have a chance to say yes or no.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An Air Traffic Controller reported that the sector was oversaturated with traffic due to weather deviations from the adjacent sectors. The Controller stated the Traffic Management Unit had not effectively managed the traffic flows.

Narrative: Position worked; Radar Assist. L-side (monitor position) position was in use at this sector as well. I relieved someone else so the event was already in progress. Weather to the north; northwest and south of the sector. Almost every aircraft needed to deviate. Along with all the other usual traffic this sector sees; we were working IAD inbounds from ZBW; BWI departures going to the northeast and beyond; and LGA arrivals (all abnormal). There is NO WAY this sector should ever have this many aircraft; especially when 85% of them were climbing and descending. All sectors/facilities that border SIE had to be hold their traffic because there was too much saturation. TMU (Traffic management Unit) set this up for failure by essentially aiming all traffic at the SIE VOR. The area supervisor told me that when TMU wanted to run the LGA traffic through this sector; they responded by saying that was not a good idea; yet the LGA traffic ran anyway. Supervisor also told me that the area was never told there would be multiple BWI departures over SIE; so TMU agreed to something that this sector sees very seldom; yet nothing was communicated. I observed more present position holds issued in one session than I have in my almost 10 years as a controller combined. To say TMU dropped the ball is a gross understatement. Teach TMU to say 'NO' if a sector is saturated; and listen to the supervisors on the floor. If there will be abnormal traffic; give an accurate number instead of a low one to soften the blow. Telling the sector to expect 6 IAD inbounds from ZBW when in reality there were at least 15 is not cool. They have TSDs (Traffic Situational Displays) and know how to count; so there is no excuse. TMU needs to do a much better job in communicating the plan so that the sectors have a chance to say yes or no.

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.