Narrative:

Sector 22 was completely overloaded with aircraft for nearly 30 minutes. Atlanta airport was on a triple departure runway configuration; and ags had a greatly increased amount of departure traffic. It should be no surprise that atl was going triple departures; as this happens daily. It should be no surprise that ags would have so many departures due to the fact that it happens this time every year. I lost track of how many aircraft were in my sector when it exceeded 20. There was a d-side and a tracker. Supervisor was directly monitoring my sector. Tmu notified the area and asked if they could help. I climbed aircraft X to FL340 and aircraft Y was at FL290 was in conflict. The conflict alert feature didn't go off until aircraft X was passing FL285 and less than 5 miles. The sector goes red at 17 aircraft; and I had nearly twice that at once. Recommendation; the supervisor was notified by tmu and they talked about options available if the situation developed into an unsafe operation; yet those options were not utilized or were under utilized until it was out of hand. Stopping the departures below the sector would have helped a great deal. A tmu reroute could have relieved some congestion as well. There were 3 controllers directly responsible for the sector; and several controllers/supervisors aware and monitoring the sector. Anyone of us/them could have made a few moves to stop aircraft from entering the sector but it didn't happen. I felt too busy to have any sort of conversation with the d-side or tracker or the departure sector (R21) sitting next to me yet if I would have had that time; it would have been very helpful. D22/T22/R21 or the supervisor could have made that call just as easily and I think they should have seen I didn't have the time to sit and have a little chat about what to do.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZTL Controller described a loss of separation event when overwhelmed with traffic volume; traffic that was predicable given the know factors.

Narrative: Sector 22 was completely overloaded with aircraft for nearly 30 minutes. Atlanta Airport was on a triple departure runway configuration; and AGS had a greatly increased amount of departure traffic. It should be no surprise that ATL was going triple departures; as this happens daily. It should be no surprise that AGS would have so many departures due to the fact that it happens this time every year. I lost track of how many aircraft were in my sector when it exceeded 20. There was a D-Side and a Tracker. Supervisor was directly monitoring my sector. TMU notified the area and asked if they could help. I climbed Aircraft X to FL340 and Aircraft Y was at FL290 was in conflict. The Conflict Alert feature didn't go off until Aircraft X was passing FL285 and less than 5 miles. The sector goes red at 17 aircraft; and I had nearly twice that at once. Recommendation; the supervisor was notified by TMU and they talked about options available if the situation developed into an unsafe operation; yet those options were not utilized or were under utilized until it was out of hand. Stopping the departures below the sector would have helped a great deal. A TMU reroute could have relieved some congestion as well. There were 3 controllers directly responsible for the sector; and several controllers/supervisors aware and monitoring the sector. Anyone of us/them could have made a few moves to stop aircraft from entering the sector but it didn't happen. I felt too busy to have any sort of conversation with the D-Side or Tracker or the Departure Sector (R21) sitting next to me yet if I would have had that time; it would have been very helpful. D22/T22/R21 or the supervisor could have made that call just as easily and I think they should have seen I didn't have the time to sit and have a little chat about what to do.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.