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DALLAS - When one thinks about air traffic control, the first image that comes to mind is a control tower. However, did you know that controllers also work in radar centers?
Even if Air Traffic Controllers are recognized for their work and responsibilities, many of us don't know much about the actual job and the daily life of those crucial workers.
With this new interview for Airways' Jobs in Aviation series, we discover the profession of these people working day and night to ensure aircraft stay safely apart from each other.
To learn more about the job and the daily life of Air Traffic Controllers, Airways had the chance to interview Helena Sjöström, who works in Sweden as a watch supervisor in a radar center and is the vice-president of the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers Associations (IFATCA).
The Role of an Air Traffic Controller
Noam Ismaaili: Hello and welcome! Can you introduce yourself?
Helena Sjöström: My name is Helena Sjöström and I have been an Air Traffic Controller for more than 30 years. I currently work as a watch supervisor at the Stockholm air traffic control center, and I am also the deputy president of the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers Associations (IFATCA).
What are lesser-known aspects of the role of an Air Traffic Controller (ATCO)?
Air Traffic Controllers do not only work in airports. Many of them work in control towers, and they are the ones we think about most of the time because the towers are visible. However, many other controllers also work in radar centers.
The towers manage the airspace from the ground up to around 500 meters and stretch out in different directions from the airport between five and eight kilometers, depending on the airport’s configuration.
However, above those 500 meters, other controllers “own” the airspace, as we call it. Most of the time, they are not in the tower: they work in front of radar screens.
The role of an ATCO is to control the airspace. Our top priority is to keep traffic safe and to make sure aircraft are separated. Another big part of our job is also to try to keep efficiency in the system.
What are the main differences between the positions you handle as a controller? Do you have a favorite?
One of the big differences is that the tower controller looks out the window a lot. In large and technically advanced towers, they would also have different kinds of radar systems in the tower as well, including ground radar.
That allows controllers to see the aircraft taxiing even when there is fog. However, when the weather is good enough, tower controllers always look out the window, which we obviously do not do in the radar center.
The approach controller has to handle the approaches, of course, but also the departures out of the airport. I have held a rating in a tower, and I have been an approach controller for most of my career. Right now, I am at the area control center as a supervisor.
Every position has its benefits and its charms. It really is an individual preference. For me, what I like the most is approach control because it is very quick, very fast, and I like that.
Do you often have to deal with unexpected events, such as poor weather?
It does not happen often, but that is indeed a big part of our job. Weather impacts air traffic a lot, but technical systems also sometimes do. That affects traffic and things often don’t turn out as planned, but that is exactly what we are there for, to find solutions to problems that arise. Being a supervisor, problem-solving is the best part of the job.
Have you ever faced an emergency?
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Yes. When you work as long as I do, and in reasonably congested airspace, you do. But I have been fortunate enough to not be controlling during a fatal crash, which I am grateful for. It has happened to some of my colleagues, and it is not easy.
Life as an Air Traffic Controller
Can you choose where you want to work?
Usually, I would say that you cannot choose. Depending on your employer, you can request a position or a transfer, but the system is becoming less diversified.
My older colleagues received training for approach, tower, and area, which is the high-level radar. But today, even if it differs a lot depending on your country, air navigation providers usually try to save money by training controllers for one rating only.
That means that if you are a tower controller, it is harder to move to a radar center because you would need additional training. Most of the time, being an ATCO means you have to move from the place where you were born and raised.
How is the salary of ATCOs decided? Does the job pay well?
Salaries are very different depending on the country you work in. In Europe and the western world, salaries are quite high. However, in other parts of the world, they can be really low, considering the high responsibilities that go with the job, and the hard-working conditions. Most of the time, your salary increases during your career, as you gain experience.
What are your working conditions? Do you often work during the night or on weekends?
Yes, air traffic operates 24 hours a day, which means ATCOs also work 24 hours a day. Smaller airports are sometimes closed during the night, so if you control this airport’s tower you do not have to work during the night shift. However, if you are a radar controller, you can be working at any time.
The organization of these schedules varies a lot depending on the providers, the companies, or government administrations employing ATCOs. I work for LFV, which is a Swedish state-owned air navigation provider. I am often able to influence my shifts, but in many different countries, including in Europe, there is a roster system and it is not possible to modify it.
How do you deal with a stressful job such as this one?
The job is very stressful, but you do not think about it when you are actually controlling aircraft. You cannot spend your working life thinking you have influence over hundreds of lives at any given minute. Controllers would never be able to go to work if they kept thinking about this.
However, we are of course under pressure. I guess it varies from person to person, but it is well known that the most efficient way of relieving the effects of stress in your life is physical exercise. It does not need to be extreme, but something that raises the pulse a little bit is good to clear out the effects of stress and adrenaline.
Evolution of Air Traffic Control
During your career, what have been the main changes in the air traffic control field?
There were definitely changes, and the main difference is, of course, the technical evolution. I started as an assistant ATCO in a tower, in a regional airport. At the time, there was not any radar in the tower, which means operations depended a lot on the weather.
Technology has advanced throughout my career. Now we are able to handle much higher loads of traffic than we could 25 years ago. But on the other hand, these systems require a more hands-on operation.
Some people believe that as we technically advance, that will also reduce the number of ATCOs needed. I am not really convinced, and it does not seem like it at the moment. Until now, at least, the need for ATCOs has been rising and rising. What we have been able to do is assume the ever-increasing workload.
How was the job during the pandemic, and how is your profession recovering from COVID-19?
This was a worldwide issue, and here in Europe, air traffic almost died from one week to another. In my facility, we had controllers on standby shifts. Every day, we calculated the number of controllers needed on the next day. We can do it because when you are dealing with civilian traffic, you know approximately the traffic that is going to come in thanks to the flight plans.
Part of my job is to look at the demand for the coming day and then decide on sector configurations and schedules for the day. This allowed us to know how many controllers we needed in the facility. We did not want to have more controllers than necessary to reduce the risk of COVID transmission.
For the watch supervisors, we were not reduced and we were actually as busy as always because military flights in fact increased during the pandemic. But for the operators, the controllers who were dealing with the actual traffic, we indeed had a lot of ATCOs on standby at home.
Many countries made mistakes, which are often made during crises, and we saw that happen during the financial crisis and 9/11. ANSPs react very quickly and try to reduce the number of controllers by letting them go. The reason for this is that air traffic control is financed by the actual flying. The airlines pay for air traffic control, which means that if there is no money coming in, it is difficult to keep operations running.
However, I believe that air traffic control is an infrastructure that always needs to be functioning. If you cut the staff significantly, you are not going to be able to start up again once the crisis is over. There won’t be any ATCOs sitting on a shelf around the corner. It takes between three and four years to recruit new controllers and the ones who were laid off move into other jobs, sometimes in completely different industries.
My employer did not make this mistake during COVID, but many other providers did, and they are suffering now when flights are increasing. Many flight control areas in the world are seeing higher traffic than in 2019, but they now have fewer staff members. We have seen massive delays this summer and the delays will continue.
I think we need to restructure the financing system of air traffic control. It’s like a fire department. It always needs to be there in case there is a fire. You don’t want to stop financing because there has not been a fire in six months. It is the same thing with air traffic control.
Did you have issues with controllers’ experience due to the COVID pandemic when traffic started ramping up? How did you make sure controllers were still qualified after months of low traffic?
Air traffic control is something that you need to practice. Otherwise, your skills and capacity levels will go down. In my facility, we ran the simulator to keep controllers in training the whole time. We also lowered our monitoring levels because, in a large radar center, the sectors are dynamically opened and closed.
That means there is not a fixed number of controllers who sit in the control position every hour. It depends on how much traffic is coming in. The way to manage this is to look ahead of time and know how much traffic is coming in the next hour. If there is too much traffic, you divide the existing sector into two parts, either laterally or vertically, and you add another controller who is on standby.
We lowered the monitoring levels, meaning we allowed fewer aircraft in the sector before it was time to split the sector into two parts.
What is your opinion on digital ATC towers, such as the new one near London City Airport, where controllers do their job miles away from the airport using cameras?
In Sweden, we have had remote tower operations running for a very long time. The first one actually opened in Sweden, and we have two centers up and running now. That works perfectly fine, controlling one airport at a time from a distance.
I am a little bit worried about the next step, controlling multiple airports simultaneously, meaning that one tower controller sitting at a radar center remotely could manage two airports at the same time. That concerns me from a safety aspect.
The biggest concern, however, is that there are different systems for this. There are high-level systems, like in Scandinavia or in Europe, but the issue is that if this continues, we must keep a very high safety level and standards worldwide because otherwise, it is a safety risk.
That is something the ATCOs community and IFATCA are monitoring very closely. We are doing everything we can to influence ICAO to put rules in place for remote tower control in order to ensure that we won’t go below a certain level of safety.
What do you think is the future of ATC? How will the job evolve in the future?
Well, I am sure ATC is continually evolving, as it has during my time. I am convinced that there will always be a need for a human being in the system, which means we must approach this in a pragmatic way. There are many aspects to this, not only the technical aspect but also the cultural one
This is a fair and safe reporting system, which is an excellent way to find out if there are safety problems in the system. This is very important, within aviation as an industry, not only in air traffic control.
I would highly recommend the profession. Especially for young people who are looking for a job with responsibilities, I can only recommend air traffic control. If I could choose any job in the world, I would pick exactly the same.
How to Become an Air Traffic Controller
How did you become Air Traffic Controller? Is there a special way to get into the area?
There are many approved air traffic control academies worldwide. You need to try to find out your country who is in charge of air traffic control and if there is an approved air traffic control academy in or close to your country. That allows you to find out the requirements you need to apply for, and then you do it!
I did my training in the southern part of Sweden, where we have an air traffic control academy. I have been at several facilities after my training. I now work at the air traffic control center in Stockholm, which is the largest facility in Sweden, and this is where I will stay until I retire.
Are special studies required before applying for Air Traffic Control training?
The studies required vary from country to country. There are a number of countries where you need to have an academic degree before applying to ATC academies. In Sweden, you need to have gone through high school with reasonably good grades in mathematics and languages.
But then there is individual testing of your simultaneous capacity and your cognitive skills, like memory tests.
How long does the training take?
It depends on the school you are in and the type of air traffic control you are training for. However, I would say that, in general, you would be in a sort of academy for approximately two years. Then you start controlling at the facility where you do the on-the-job training (OJT). for 6 to 18 months.
During the second part of training, you sit with older and experienced controllers, who are your instructors. They have a double command and sit with you all the time. In the beginning, you start very slowly, but towards the end, you are managing the entire sector, and your instructor is only here as a backup.
What are the qualities needed in order to be a good ATCO?
You have to be focused and able to handle stress because it is a stressful job, but you need to be able to push through the stress and keep working. You need a good memory and to be quick in decision-making.
You need to visualize what is going to happen in the next 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 10 minutes and then read the situation. You need to be prepared for all eventualities, to have a plan A, a plan B, and possibly a plan C; you need to know how to improvise.
What do you like and dislike about your job?
Well, I like everything about my job! Of course, working a lot during night shifts and not being able to be there for my children’s birthdays and special events, that's a downside. Also, we know that working shifts in a stressful environment will probably have an effect on your health and lifespan.
Would you have any advice for somebody who would like to become an ATCO?
Do it!
The IFATCA
Can you talk about the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers Associations? What is its role in the industry?
There are a number of Air Traffic Controllers associations, almost one in each country. IFATCA is an umbrella organization for all of those. Some of them are also unions, and some of them are merely professional associations.
However, the purpose of IFATCA is flight safety and its goal is to advance the Air Traffic Control profession. We do this in various ways. We try to make sure that controllers are recognized worldwide. We try to help them to continue their training in the profession. We also believe that we, who are still working as professionals inside the ATC community, have a lot to bring to the table.
Decision-making and regulations should not be left only to politicians, economists, engineers, and high-level managers who may have not spent any time controlling for a good number of years. We know how it works, we know what is needed, and we are doing everything we can to have a positive influence on the system.
One of the best ways for us to do this is to leverage our seat in the Air Navigation Commission in ICAO. Through this position, we have a lot of influence; we can actually participate in the writing of the rules and regulations of tomorrow.
I was part of the IFATCA representation to the ICAO, General Assembly in early October, where all the 193 member states of the United Nations meet, but also a number of professional associations, including IFATCA.
What were the goals for the ICAO assembly?
Our goal is always to influence decisions that will be made in order to improve the air traffic control system. That is where we can bring our knowledge and our expertise, which is greatly recognized by ICAO. We have a very good working relationship with the organization.
Do you see a lot of differences in ATC between countries?
It differs greatly, largely from the economic reality of different parts of the world. Our federation, IFATCA, is divided into four geographical regions: Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Africa-Middle East.
The problems and concerns differ widely depending on the region, so it is a challenge to help every region and each Member Association. We currently have 133 Member Associations and we represent around 40,000 ATCOs in the world.
Great! Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions!
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Featured image: Flights at LGW will be capped at 825 per day in July and 850 in August. Photo: Gatwick Airport.
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