 |
37000 Feet | Browse and search NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System |
|
Air carrier first officer reported difficulty receiving a revised clearance for weather deviation because ATC was saturated with traffic.
| Attributes | |
| ACN | 1755317 |
| Time | |
| Date | 202008 |
| Local Time Of Day | 1801-2400 |
| Place | |
| Locale Reference | ZZZ.Airport |
| State Reference | US |
| Environment | |
| Light | Daylight |
| Aircraft 1 | |
| Make Model Name | Commercial Fixed Wing |
| Operating Under FAR Part | Part 121 |
| Flight Phase | Descent |
| Route In Use | Direct |
| Flight Plan | IFR |
| Person 1 | |
| Function | First Officer Pilot Flying |
| Qualification | Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) |
| Experience | Flight Crew Last 90 Days 176 Flight Crew Type 721 |
| Events | |
| Anomaly | ATC Issue All Types Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence |
Narrative:
Throughout the last several weeks at least; communication with ATC has been difficult on many occasions throughout the day due to ATC saturation. More than usual; controllers are working multiple sectors; combining multiple frequencies; and overall being task-saturated far more often than I am used to. It is my perception that ATC staffing was adjusted several months ago to match decreased traffic counts associated with the covid downturn; and now that traffic counts have largely rebounded; ATC staffing has not increased anywhere nearly as quickly. A great example was on this flight leg; inbound to ZZZ - as far as we could tell; one controller was working all ZZZ of approach/departure; leading to his absolute saturation trying to handle IFR inbounds/outbounds to/from ZZZ and several satellite airports; and being compounded significantly by a handful of VFR aircraft operating in the area. We tried for quite some time to request a heading deviation for towering cumulus buildups in the vicinity of the STAR course; and were glad to finally get a word in before we would have needed to choose to either accept worse turbulence than we needed to or deviate from a clearance. There is no doubt that the ATC saturation was at a level which compromised safety several times over the last few days of flying.
Original NASA ASRS Text
Title: Air carrier First Officer reported difficulty receiving a revised clearance for weather deviation because ATC was saturated with traffic.
Narrative: Throughout the last several weeks at least; communication with ATC has been difficult on many occasions throughout the day due to ATC saturation. More than usual; Controllers are working multiple sectors; combining multiple frequencies; and overall being task-saturated far more often than I am used to. It is my perception that ATC staffing was adjusted several months ago to match decreased traffic counts associated with the COVID downturn; and now that traffic counts have largely rebounded; ATC staffing has not increased anywhere nearly as quickly. A great example was on this flight leg; inbound to ZZZ - as far as we could tell; one Controller was working all ZZZ of Approach/Departure; leading to his absolute saturation trying to handle IFR inbounds/outbounds to/from ZZZ and several satellite airports; and being compounded significantly by a handful of VFR aircraft operating in the area. We tried for quite some time to request a heading deviation for towering cumulus buildups in the vicinity of the STAR course; and were glad to finally get a word in before we would have needed to choose to either accept worse turbulence than we needed to or deviate from a clearance. There is no doubt that the ATC saturation was at a level which compromised Safety several times over the last few days of flying.
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.