This isn’t the first time nor I think the last time it’s going to happen but I am on a flight from New Zealand to King Khalid in OERK which is about a 17 hour flight and I should be arriving in about an hour-ish and there is no ATC there and today is their scheduled date to have as the primary controlled airport so I’m curious as to how ATC just leaves when it’s not the time for changeover so I think a better explanation would be great or possibly looking into why it’s not being controlled?
It may well be on the featured airport list for today but that does not guarantee 24-hour coverage. A reminder that us IFATC controllers are volunteers and we can control where we like, when we like.
The vast majority of IFATC controllers have to control for a minimum of 1 hour - it’s not a thing that we can just open for 5 minutes to give service to one aircraft.
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Controllers may staff any airport in the world in addition to featured airports listed below.
From the ATC Schedule.
Not what I am asking about
The point I’m trying to make is the fact we need to block off at least an hour of our day to control. Which is why airports don’t get 24 hour coverage.
Probably because whoever was controlling had had enough.
Don’t get me wrong. I am highly impressed with the amount of controllers that volunteer their time, however, I understand that it is a volunteer thing and I know that a lot of ATC controllers are very proud that they are an ATC controller. I guess my assumption was that if it’s a featured airport with a feature route that that destination airport is typically the focus Airport and is therefore staffed as much as possible for that day but I get the logistics of volunteer time and energy into controlling the busier airports.
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I try help but when I see Benny haven’t already replied, I just give up. 
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There’s almost always one airport open, controllers aren’t required to open the featured airports as they were in the past.