DGCA To Ensure Greater Air Safety In India With 'Adequate Rest' For Air Traffic Controllers

Air Traffic Controllers in India, who are the key personnel for ensuring safe flow of air traffic, will now get adequate rest, keeping in line with international regulations.

Air Traffic Controllers

DGCA has, from Thursday (Sept 21), started implementing 'watch duty time limitation' (WDTL) and rest requirements regulations for ATCOs providing air traffic services at 57 centres, thereby minimising the chances of human error and contributing to air safety.

The regulations are modelled on International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) requirements.

Who are Air Traffic Controllers?

Usually stationed in air traffic control centres and control towers on the ground, Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs or ATCOs) monitor aircraft's position, speed, and altitude in their assigned airspace visually and by radar and give directions to the pilots by radio.

Controllers apply separation rules to keep aircraft at a safe distance from each other and within proper airspace in their area of responsibility and move all aircraft safely and efficiently through their assigned airspace and on the ground.

Air Traffic Control tower

The ATCO profession is consistently regarded around the world as one of the most mentally challenging careers.

As the DGCS statement titled "towards safer skies" says: "ATCOs are the key personnel whose commitment towards safe, orderly and efficient flow of air traffic makes travel by air, the safest mode of transportation. The profession is highly challenging, stressful, induces fatigue due to the nature of work and requires the highest degree of integrity, hard work, conflict resolution abilities and commitment."

Where do the 'watch duty time limitation' norms apply?

The WDTL norms are now applicable in 57 ATC centres. This includes 15 from the southern region, 12 from the western region, 11 from the eastern region, 10 from northeast region and 9 from northern region.

Southern region centres: Trichy, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tuticorin, Calicut, Kannur, Kalaburgi, Mysore, Belgaum, Hubli, Vijayawada, Cudappah, Hyd-Begumpet, Tirupati and Rajahmundry.

Western region centres: Mopa Goa, Indore, Surat, Bhopal, Udaipur, Vadodara, Aurangabad, Hirasar, Jabalpur, Shridi, Kohlapur and Juhu.

Eastern region centres: Bhubaneshwar, Patna, Ranchi, Durgapur, Gaya, Jhasarguda, Deogar, Jagdalpur, Raipur, Kajuraho and Kushinagar.

Northeast region centres: Barapani, Dibrugarh, Dimapur, Lengpui, Lilabari, Rupsi, Imphal, Agartala, Hollongi and Tezu.

Northern region centres: Amritsar, Dehradun, Kishangarh, Shimla, Kanpur, Bhuntar, Gaggal, Pant Nagar and Safdarjung.

The remaining airports would see a rollout of these norms in a phased manner.

Do such norms exist for pilots and crew members too?

While similar norms are in place for pilots, too, the crew members of some big airlines have been complaining of fatigue due to optimising rostering softwares.

They have been raising the issue of being assigned more than the desired number of night flights and spending more days in hotels instead of their homes.

This is because the Indian airlines are optimising rostering softwares.

"The big airlines doing so are not breaking any law. The DGCA has set the limits for using pilots. The itemising softwares utilise crew to the limit. This is leading to fatigue," say multiple pilots.

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