The current regs create havoc at small GA airfields which can only just barely afford ATC but – in the UK and some other places – require ATC for an instrument approach to be legally available. The mandatory breaks create the requirement to have two or more ATCOs to provide continuous coverage.
If the wx is less than stellar, the ATCO sits there all day doing very little, so one could argue there is less need for the mandatory break.
Obviously all this is tightly wrapped up with union rules and possibly ICAO rules, so changing it would be extremely controversial, but in the GA scenario it seems excessively tight, and ATC is the biggest fixed cost of any airfield. In many countries it is State funded but – like chamber of commerce funded airfields – that merely shifts the problem elsewhere, and the vulnerability remains whereby some bean counter will one day notice the cost and shut the airfield down.
If the wx is less than stellar, the ATCO sits there all day doing very little, so one could argue there is less need for the mandatory break.
Sitting at the position doesn’t qualify as a break, whether you have something to do or not. For me personally, sitting there with nothing to do is far more nerve wrecking than working complex traffic streams. Both situations are demanding for very different reasons.
What I can’t understand is why the place can’t just go air ground when ATC are on a break.
I once dropped into an airfield for fuel only to find I then had to wait an hour due ATC break. I was quite happy to depart VFR none radio but I wasn’t allowed. And the airfield only has an ATZ in class G airspace.
On a weekend my local unlicensed grass strip has movements often with no one on the radio at all.
It’s ridiculous rules like “no ATC => no IFR app” that lead to situations like these. Not a problem in mainland Europe…
Obviously there’s little advantage having ATC when traffic numbers are low – the costs outweigh the benefits.
The UK makes another mockery of it by allowing ATC in uncontrolled airspace. 
Virtual towers might be a way forward to keep costs down. The same controller looks after a few airports from a remote location.
It’s ridiculous rules like “no ATC => no IFR app” that lead to situations like these. Not a problem in mainland Europe…
The Q of which country allows IAPs without ATC was asked here and with the key Q being in post #15 there, the situation is a lot less clear than some would believe – because in most cases (including the often quoted US one) you have an approach controller. He merely is not sitting in the tower. ICAO requirements for an “air traffic controller” to “control” traffic in the air are complied with, and everybody is happy. The same can (and does – e.g. Walney Island, and some in Scotland IIRC) exist in the UK; the issue is “merely” who will pay his salary.
I was really asking a more rhetorical Q of why the ATC work schedule is not traffic related. At Gatwick etc you have constant traffic of course regardless of wx, but at most GA airports, if it is say OVC009, the traffic is a few % of normal, or less.
airways wrote:
It’s ridiculous rules like “no ATC => no IFR app” that lead to situations like these. Not a problem in mainland Europe…
In The Netherlands it is very much the case – plus no controlled airspace means no instrument approach
Peter wrote:
ICAO requirements for an “air traffic controller” to “control” traffic in the air are complied with, and everybody is happy.
Peter, you have said before that ICAO standards require an approach controller. Do you know where that is stated?
Sorry – I read it on the internet, but I have read it many times so it must be true
But, really, isn’t it a regulatory cornerstone that you need to be a “controller” to control aircraft in the air? Ground traffic is different; two planes colliding during taxi is no more serious, in aviation accident (AAIB, NTSB, etc) regulatory terms, than two fire engines colliding (this was actually a Q in some aviation exam I did).
Peter wrote:
But, really, isn’t it a regulatory cornerstone that you need to be a “controller” to control aircraft in the air?
Well, yes, if the traffic is to be controlled. Otherwise clearly not… So I can rephrase my question. Is it written somewhere (and then where) in ICAO standards and recommended practises that the approach must be controlled?
