10 is the minimum to run the triple. 11 and we do it for the whole shift. There have been a few retirements in the last few years and new qualifications haven't kept pace, let alone exceeded them in order to let people leave and advance their careers or wind down into retirement somewhere quieter. People have left and will leave to work non-operational jobs as they can't be deferred, unlike operational job moves.ZBBYLW wrote:Is there a desire by Nav Canada to increase staffing in the tower to permit more 10 controller shifts? Is it a matter of surprise retirements and they are just getting caught up in training or is it something they are not interesting in doing due to budget cuts or what not?
It shouldn't have come as a surprise as the unit has been 10-20% understaffed for the 13 years I've been here and gets by on overtime. When we don't feel like doing overtime because the weather's nice (or not nice) or we need a few days off, we run short. The line of volunteers looking to work here is very short so we're left trying to train ab initios at the country's busiest and most complex unit. How do you think that's going? Want to train a 40 hour PPL for the right seat in a triple 7?