Hi I was just promoted to the grade 3 (expert server, so sry if idk a few things) but so far I’ve observed that airports featured in the schedule usually rarely ever actually get controlled
I understand that controllers may not want to control that particular airport due to low demand, but (at least for people like me), not having the ATC there is what keeps the demand low, like how I plan to fly to a certain airport BECAUSE ATC was supposed to be there, but end up there is no ATC, flying there would then become pointless, which therefore decreases number of people flying to the airport. Especially since after doing abit of reading, I realised that they now post the schedule at the start of the month instead of the week so people can “plan ahead”, if the ATC is consistently not there and at some other airport instead, what’s the point of posting the schedule if it’s so unreliable?
idk if I just don’t know how to read the schedule properly or smth but tbh I find it abit weird and disappointing so if someone experienced or even a controller could help clarify this it would help ty
Hi, IFATC is allowed to open any airport in the world. So yes it is possible that ATC is not always there because we consists of volunteers. However most often we will try to staff the airports from the schedule the most, as this is also the most fun for us :)
like today (24oct) I wanted to do WSSS-ZSPD cuz zspd was supposed to have, but I ended up cancelling the flight cuz it was only wiii and eventually wsss, zspd doesn’t have ATC (I think there was for only a very brief moment and the rest of the day so far dint have), even though zspd was in the schedule while wsss and wiii wasnt
I honestly feel like a simple solution is just to reduce the number of airports in the list, like now it’s usually 5 airports a day, perhaps reduce to just 2, it’s better to have 2 airports that IF can “commit” to having atc, while other airports can have other IFATC open on their own, instead of committing to 5 airports in the schedule but end up only 2 of them actl have ATC, which makes the schedule very unreliable. This would not only not restrict the IFATC too much and they can open their airport in addition to the promised airports, but also increase reliability of the schedule as the airports listed have increased probability of actually being controlled since there are fewer airports the schedule lists
If we can be more certain (though it can never be 100%) that the ‘featured’ route will always be ‘alive’, then the schedule will make more sense.
For me I focus on the main airports listed, so there were controllers like 80% of the time, and I’m fine with that. Most of the time I miss the ATC on the destination and that’s fine too, since, again, they’re volunteers.
I’m okay with the current system, but if it’s just ‘featured’ route, without additional airports, it can feel like a ‘mini-event’ everyday.
Would you be ready to try to change things and opt in a passengers system which will be designed to follow the schedule and bring passengers to the scheduled facilities so the traffic could be improved between all airports?
That’s exactly what and why I’m working on my next bot’s fonction right now
The idea is to manage the offer and demand and favorize more destinations for pilots if they decide to play passengers side of things.
ATC usually blindly follows when an airport is poping
I usually choose airports from the list to provide service, but if there are too few people at the airport, it indeed doesn’t hold much appeal for the controllers.
Personally, I have seen many featured airports with less than 5-10 inbounds, and all of them are at least 2 hours away. Currently, the rule for IFATC controllers is to control a minimum of 1 hour (30mins for IFATC Apprentices who just began controlling)
Thus, I tend to shy away from controlling them in favour for busier hub airports which are more “worth my time”. However, I understand the appeal for more consistent ATC services to featured airports, and I’d support any reasonable changes to make that happen if any :)
Yes like austin was supposed to be controlled but its wasnt because nobody was there but also we need to remeber that they are human to and somethings happen that can prevent them
Yeah this makes sense. It’s not only the controllers who need to be in the featured airports, but the pilots too.
And with pilots being free to fly whatever they want (with VA routes, events, etc.), the featured airports are not going to be that much fun to control.
I’d also like to point out that in the atc schedule, there’s usually the featured route, the rest of the airports mentioned are marked as additional. Then due to the most of the pilots wanting to fly to the hubs, those additional airports get no traffic, hence no ATC.
I’m not a huge fan of this, but I wouldn’t mind it being changed though. As I already stated, those airports are additional. They might get service, or they might not. We shouldn’t have the mindset that those will and absolutely should be controlled. IFATC are volunteers, as stated by others.
that’s why maybe reducing no. of airports would concentrate the demand of planes to fewer airports, for e.g 10 arr planes per airports for 5 airports (total 50 aircraft), instead reduce to 2 airports, each airport will have 25 aircraft. Ofc no. of ac are not exact but yea iykyk what I mean. This benefits both sides cuz IFATC will have enough number of planes to have fun themselves and for pilots as it increases consistency and reliability of schedule
