CASE STUDY

A day in the life by Bengt Collin

05.11 scheduled, with six fl ights. The fi rst opinions, then we have no idea why”, Drinking his fi rst black coff ee in his fl ight was south returning back to he added. hotel room, he started singing on the their home base, followed by a return song “Samba Sambero”. He stopped fl ight up to the very north, then two “We haven’t said that, we just wanted immediately when he came aware of more legs out from and back to where your opinions” a representative from it. Why did he remember songs like they started this morning. At least it the big organisation responded, “it’s that? Irritating songs with irritating lyr- was not snowing, but the planning important to have an open discussion ics, performed by artists that were, to was very tight to say the least, with 25 about everything”. say the least, diff erent. Nine times out minutes scheduled turn around times. of ten the songs been broadcast on “Well, our budget is under pressure, TV, somehow they stayed in his mind 09.10 but we know what to do, no problem, forever. How ever hard he tried, it was Three of the walls in the meeting room we will look after all the issues. Next impossible to forget these songs, in were in a dark green colour, a colour year we will have more resources and fact the more he tried to forget, the that reminded her on the big forest everything will be just fi ne”. The airport more he remembered them. Like this where she grew up. The fourth wall representative looked confi dent. The morning. He started singing Samba was brown, luckily it didn’t give her ATC representative agreed, “we will Sambero again. any fl ash backs at all. have a really in-depth look at the in- creasing number of runway incursions 05.45 The big organisation was visiting to do next year too, but we know nothing The crew transport was waiting for a study on safety culture. Prior to the has really changed”. them outside the hotel, to take them scheduled visit, everybody had had to the small airport a few kilometres the chance to answer a questionnaire. 11.42 away. The darkness was thick, the Now they were discussing and explain- They arrived 30 minutes late at the streets empty. The clear crispy air woke ing what the written answers indicat- airport in the north. Considering the him up in seconds. It was his fi rst year ed. This particular session included the tight turn around time, plus the expec- with the airline, before he had worked airport people; airside workers as well tation of a strong head wind on their abroad for six years for another low as ATC. In the corner of the room was a return fl ight, the Captain decided to cost carrier. The opportunity to move big plant, well it was, obviously no one contact crew planning at their home back home arose when this airline, had watered it for months. base. It was clearly impossible to com- continuously expanding their route plete the planned sectors inside the network, invested in new aircraft. They Liza, a controller from the Tower, was rostered eleven hour duty time, the had a need for more pilots with ex- a bit surprised that some of the meet- maximum allowed. He did not want perience. ing participants were unaware of the to fi le another Captain’s Discretion Re- existence of the Local Runway Safety port, a must if you exceeded the per- They worked hard, today be- Team. Being a member of the team mitted maximum hours. The last time ing no exception. An eleven herself, she assumed everybody knew he had had to do so was some three hour fl ying duty period was about it. They were actually having a weeks ago, he knew from colleagues Team meeting this afternoon, the fi rst that this happened in the company for ten months. far too often. More important was that they would certainly not be fi t to fl y Bengt Collin 11.30 towards the end of the day. The report The safety culture visitors continued was one thing, the reason behind it worked at EUROCONTROL with a meeting with the airport man- much more important. HQ as a Senior Expert agement. “We have a good safety involved in operational ATC safety activities. culture, in fact this is our top prior- 13.35 Bengt has a long background as Tower and ity” Steve, one of the management “I’ll hope you understand the cost for Approach controller at Stockholm-Arlanda representatives, explained. The other our company if you don’t fl y your ros- Airport, Sweden participants nodded and looked very tered fl ights. Being a company highly serious. “If our workforce have other appreciated by our customers we ex-

20 pect you to meet their expecta- tions. No one ever expected us to depart on time, but our passengers at least expect to arrive at their destination the same evening”.

The message from the crew base supervisor was crys- tal clear. He felt the pres- sure - refusing to fl y the last two fl ights may end up in increased pressure at the next six month profi ciency check, it had happened be- fore to pilots who had com- plained.

14.55 The Local Runway Safety Team meeting started fi ve minutes early, everybody was there on time - un- believable. Chris, the secretary, went quickly through the actions from the previous meeting. “The runway safety awareness campaign is still on hold. The airport thought it was not neces- sary, we had one fi ve years ago and without their support we can’t pro- ceed. Let’s look at the problem from a positive side, less work for us”. “That was the next item on the list of A distinct aroma of coff ee spread action, I suppose we need to keep it around the room. This will be a short Liza couldn’t stay silent, she almost for the next meeting then” Chris re- meeting Liza thought as she sup- never could. “We need to do this cam- plied. “What about the proposal for pressed a gasp. It’s been a long day, but paign, we have a lot of new people in the vehicle driver training Alan? As it still wasn’t over, she had to return to various airside jobs and besides that, you explained to us, that was also ur- the Tower for duty for at least four more the number of reported runway incur- gent” Sid, the Chairman seated at the hours. sions has increased. Earlier today I was far end of the table, asked Alan. in a safety culture meeting, some par- 15.28 ticipants were completely unaware of “Same thing I’m afraid, no money” Liza, being in charge of the runway, was our Team and our safety work”. “Brent, Alan replied. “We still have the old sitting in front of three relatively large you are representing the airport, can’t training method from the days before screens. The electronic strip system you do something”? Brent looked un- the re-modelling of the airport”, he was very new, they had started using comfortable. “I’ve tried to explain this continued. I’ve read in an article about it operationally two weeks ago. Like all to the management but the standard the new simulator for vehicle drivers at the other systems it was a stand-alone answer is that we need to save money. Brussels. They can train their drivers for system. Originally it was planned to be We don’t even have enough money to diffi cult situations in various scenarios integrated with the airport surveillance update the signs that we suggested at which are impossible to train live. It system, but due to technical problems the last meeting although it is urgent”. would be perfect for us, but no”. this had been delayed for at least a 44

HindSight 19 Summer 2014 21 CASE STUDY

Case Study A day in the life (cont'd)

year. She had to work with different ferent intersection to the one cleared it’s something to do with the flap set- inputs for everything and not work- and coordinated. He chose not to ting, so it’s good we didn’t overrun the ing every day, she found it not exactly correct him, after all no one else was end of the runway – there was a risk difficult but certainly a bit complicat- around and anyway, he knew about we might given that the braking ac- ed. I wonder if it’ll ever get integrated the incorrect signs. He returned to his tion was far below what reported. It Liza thought, looking down on one of coffee and newspaper, hoping no one was rather slippery and certainly not the screens and the taxiways in front would disturb him in the near future - the reported “good” braking action. of her. At the other end of the cabin he wanted to check the results for his “We should report this”, his First Officer she could hear the conversation of favourite team Wolves. commented in a concerned voice! For- two colleagues about the television get it, the Captain replied. After a day program they had both watched. 16.17 like that, the last thing I want to do is “This song is really annoying” one Liza had problems with the electronic write a report on the braking action, I of them said, starting to sing, com- strip system. How did you mark the want to get home as soon as possible. pletely out of tune, “Samba Sambero, runway as occupied? She had done I have an early start tomorrow. Samba Samberio, mitt hjärta dansar, it in the training but that was a long kärleken i mitt blod”. For a second Liza time ago, at least four months earlier. 18.24 thought of asking them to leave, they Due to their roster, the training could The head lights from his car were really disturbed her and besides that not be delayed when the system was. a sharp contrast to the dark area they couldn’t sing. But better wait She would ask Peter when he returned around his dark house and the dark until the Supervisor returned from from his break, he would certainly road in front of it. He didn’t think his meal break, he’d been away for an know how to do it. about it though, he opened his front hour, maybe more. She continued her door. He was so tired, he went in to work by giving an aircraft a departure 16.26 the dark empty house and cuddled clearance. On four mile final they were instructed his Persian cat. Finally back home to contact the Tower. An alert sound- after a long LONG day. Samba Sam- 16.01 ed. Both pilots looked at the accompa- bero, he started singing… Their last turn around lasted thirty nying flashing amber light, the sound five minutes, adding another ten was irritating. It took a few seconds be- minutes to their total delay. The head fore they realised where the problem wind on their last flight of the day was and neither of them knew exactly made it impossible to claw any time what to do. “Check the Manual please” back. His First Officer asked for de- he said to his First Officer, I’ll continue scent. It was quiet in the flight deck, flying. neither of them was in the mood for a chat. He tried to stay focused on what 16.28 to do. He was tired. “Peter, how do you show that there is a vehicle on the runway”, Liza asked? 16.16 Peter walked up to her, they both The assistant controller replied to the looked down on the electronic strips, vehicle driver calling. The driver had Peter started to explain, pointing on phoned ten minutes earlier, explain- the strips. An aircraft landed on the ing the urgent need to replace some runway, missing the vehicle by two centre line lights. They had a small gap metres. in both the inbound and outbound traffic, better to fix the problem im- 16.29 mediately rather than waiting till lat- We got the landing clearance didn’t er. He coordinated with Liza, but the we? I’m sure we did, the First Officer vehicle driver used a completely dif- replied. I was busy looking up the drill,

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