In a recent survey involving passengers, Mumbai airport was voted the best in the country. However, all is not as hunky-dory as one would prefer it to be; the Air Traffic Control (ATC) — the airport’s nerve centre — is ailing.
According to a study by IIT Bombay to assess cognitive workload (CW — the amount of mental resources required to perform a given task), the air traffic control officials (ATCOs) are not only understaffed but also overworked. They are highly stressed, and therefore, prone to making mistakes. What makes it worse is that the airport authorities do not have proper tools to assess the workload of these officials.
The airport has 200 ATCOs handling traffic of more than 700 flights daily. As per standard procedure, they are to handle 10-12 flights per hour; however, they handle 30-40 flights per hour during peak hours.
“The ATCOs are highly stressed, and a minimum of 28 factors contribute to their workload,” said an official from the ATC guild, Delhi.
“With 700 daily flights in operation and just 200 officials handling them with limited resources like a single runway, lack of proper infrastructure, no surface movement radar (SMR), their CW is ever
increasing.”
Some of the factors that contribute to CW are traffic load, pilot responses — errors and delays, aircraft/pilot procedural violation, non-integrated communication, co-ordination with other units, etc.
The study also found that there were limitations to assess CW as it was based on self-reporting.
“Out of the 120 ATCOs approached, only 68 volunteered. Biased outcomes are possible as it is based on self-reporting,” states the study.
