Airports need 1,000 more ATC officers

New Delhi: If you thought that the IGI airport in Delhi is the only one suffering a shortage of air traffic controllers (ATC), think again. The country has 1,500 ATC officers, which is only 60 per cent of its requirement of 2,500 ATC officers.
And despite new recruitments and training, the shortage will remain for the next few years, forcing ATCs to work much more than the stipulated working hours. In fact, even the existing numbers are not all on ground controlling aircraft. “1,500 is just the total number of the officials across the country. Since the officials have several other duties and have to be present in the headquarters also, the total number of ATC officials (ATCO) actually controlling aircraft in the country at any given time comes to around 1,200,” said an AAI official.
Take the case of the Delhi airport, which currently has 200 ATC officials in all, out of which around 120 are senior officials.
The airport recently inaugurated its third runway and the internationally accepted requisite number of ATCOs for an airport having three runways comes to 350, a figure the airport will only reach in a year’s time, given the recruitment plans.
Mumbai airport has a different set of problems. The airport has two intersecting runways operating, which would call for more precision in controlling the aircraft movements to avoid collision.
Hyderabad airport currently has no shortage of ATC officials but executives said that it had faced a problem in the initial two months after it started due to lack of trained manpower in handling the equipment.
The Hyderabad and Bangalore airports have in turn put further pressure to an already thin staff as a large of number of officials from various airports were deployed at Hyderabad and Bangalore.
Waking up to the staff crunch now, AAI has sent 300 ATCO aspirants for training to the Civil Aviation Training College (CATC), Allahabad, the only such institute which imparts ATC training. People who want to join ATC services first sit for an exam conducted by the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
Those selected after the exam are sent to CATC for a training of six months to a year. The 300 new recruits are expected to join the airports by February 2009, which would ease the pressure on ATCs a bit.
29/08/08 Anirban Chowdhury/Business Standard

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Categories: Airports Aug 2008