If you’re referring to the linked thread, that provides transparency around appeal decisions and how pilots navigate the appeals process which is helpful but it doesn’t address controller accountability.
If you’re referring to the written responses here, I want to be clear: I’m not asking for individual assurances or promises. I’m asking about formal, repeatable procedures that are consistently followed. Hence my previous post full of questions.
These are the kinds of answers that build confidence in the system, not just that someone says accountability exists, but that it’s structured and transparent, even internally.
To address some of your points as clearly and concisely as possible, from the perspective of a supervisor:
All controllers have internal logs that are cohesively kept by all of IFATC’s leadership divisions (supervisors, trainers, recruiters, appeals, moderators). Both positive and negative trends are noted, and when they are noted, the member of leadership doing so will also share the feedback they have with the controller privately. It is when these negative trends begin to stack up that perhaps further intervention may be considered.
On the training side of things, it’s hard to really pinpoint areas of weakness that can directly be placed on any of the trainers themselves. From my observations, most dips in controller performance stem from controllers overstepping their personal limits and becoming overwhelmed as a result; given that the training program has what I’d consider to be limited resources at this point in time, it’s hard to simulate these sort of scenarios that extend beyond just the fundamentals necessary to pass a practical exam. In other words, as much as trainers can work their absolute hardest to straighten out a controllers’ weaknesses prior to their test, much of a controller’s development becomes their disciplined responsibility once they finish training. More about this below.
There exists a check ride process for new local and radar controllers, implemented to encourage controllers to work their way into the deep end. By restricting controllers from stepping into hubs, it allows them to build upon their fundamentals and become more comfortable with an Expert Server environment that can be far different from a training environment. This is also an opportunity for leadership to continuously review a controller’s development and provide feedback as necessary.
Unfortunately, there do exist limitations of this process, and not all controllers’ mindsets align with that of the check ride’s intentions. When a controller’s check ride does end, the presence of observation from a leadership standpoint continues, however, without defined limitations of what a controller can and cannot control post-CR, many controllers jump straight into the deep end. With over 700 controllers in IFATC, it’s quite difficult to hold everyone’s hands in this case.
Yes, appeals and supervisors will log both of these. They tend to paint a clearer picture in regards to patterns, which can then be addressed. Some patterns are also IFATC-wide issues that have been addressed with the team as a whole–more recently, this involved the usage of pushback and taxi control, though issues with violations have also been addressed team-wide in the past as well.
I would say updates to training moreso stem from actual updates to the ATC infrastructure–an example being the incorporation of drag and taxi to local training and procedures to radar training, respectively. Again, once a controller passes their test, there is no real “training curriculum”, much of the development occurs through first-hand controlling.
We’d typically say that pilots should either privately message the controller when giving feedback, or for more serious issues, privately messaging a member of IFATC leadership. However, I would encourage issues to be raised with leadership (supervisors or moderators) whenever possible, for two reasons:
A pilot and controller butting heads is unproductive, and typically one or both parties will go in and escalate the situation unnecessarily. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed several cases where controllers have been reluctant to acknowledge pilots’ perspectives, coming across with dismissiveness and an attitude of superiority. As a leadership team, we offer a more neutral and structured environment for resolving conflicts and assessing situations from an objective angle. We can parse through feedback (because not all of it is accurate at times) and ensure clarity in the presentation of feedback.
Bringing issues to leadership helps us identify broader patterns (as you mentioned). With a way of providing structured feedback, we can address issues that would have otherwise been swept other the rug.
Are there flaws to this system as a whole? Yes, but it’s the best we’ve got at this stage in time.
Yes. Whether the controllers want to take the feedback and work on improving upon it, well, that’s their responsibility.
Yes, controlling or reporting trends that continue over time may be addressed through several different courses of action.
It’s impossible to review every report that is given, but things tend to uncover themselves eventually. A member of leadership may notice that a controller gave out an excessive number of violations over the course of a session and bring it up for review, or of course, incorrect violations that are brought into the appeals inbox will be handled with the controller as well. All I would say here is that we do our best to stop things in their tracks before they escalate beyond a certain point, and having the pilots’ help in this case is certainly beneficial.
Again, trends that are brought up with the controller and not remediated can lead to further action, including suspension. It’s rare that such cases occur with malicious intent, but there does exist a point where issues need to be addressed in such ways. That’s above my pay grade, though.
IFATC members are encouraged to provide each other feedback, though in a way, it suffers from the same issues I raised in response to your previous point regarding pilot-controller feedback.
TL;DR: There exists a framework of accountability that is structured, but in its current state, it certainly does suffer from its fair share of flaws, both intrinsically and in the ways that it is used in practice.
Thank you for spending so much time on your response, I greatly appreciate the effort and details you put into explaining answers to all of the questions I provided!
I think it would be widely beneficial for IFATC to have some sort of publicly accessible “Policies and Procedures Guide” (or whatever name it is given) to explain transparently the measures in detail you’ve provided above, plus any more relevant information that controllers (if they are not already aware of the inner workings), pilots, and community members alike should be aware of. At the end of the day, pilots and controllers are supposed to work together, not fight against each other at every turn(which seems to be happening currently with the disputes and the superiority complex, I’ve seen it too as a regular member (eg no moderator/supervisor position or status, simply a person who is an active user on the sim and the forum). On the sim, we enjoy the expert server experience because of the others’ presence (controllers need pilots to create those satisfying flows/procedures, and pilots want controllers for realism).
I think if the structure is clearly and transparently explained in detail, the community itself will have less issues overall, questions can be referred to the specific section of that guide, controller actions are explainable in black and white (given legitimate and not a mistake), policies and procedures are established for disciplinary action, and there is no longer ambiguity from the public’s perspective on how the system works.
I know this is all above your pay grade, but it’s worth putting on the table…
If you did read the ATC manual completely, you might not find such a guide that you speak of. Once you have passed the IFATC practical and are into the team, a new section in the ATC manual will be opened only to IFATC, which has everything that is necessary, and contains most of the things you stated above.(Controlling rules, Activity requirements, Check rides, ranks, disciplinary procedures, discord communication, and violations). I think it isn’t made public because some things in this section of the manual aren’t exactly required to be seen by everyone(Especially the discord communications part, it contains info on all the channels and stuff).
A follow up question would be, why is the regulation manual so secretive? I understand witholding private information (example: disciplinary action taken against specific controllers… etc), but the ways in which the organization operates should be posted for the community to view.
To be honest, from an outsiders perspective, IFATC seems like a cult. Everything is secret until you are “in the club”. When pilots voice their concerns about IFATC, 5 IFATC members automatically respond without listening to the pilot, in a defensive mode that doesn’t help the problem at hand, it ends up putting the pilot “in their place” in a 5v1. No, I’m not slandering or trying to bring the IFATC community down, I want that perspective to change through constructive feedback (which I’m giving) and productive dialogue. Just because somebody doesn’t have to read the flying handbook or watch the IF YouTube Tutorials doesn’t mean it should be withheld from certain people.
If we have regulations and rules about reporting that are clearly stated in the manuals publicly. A pilot can read the manuals and figure out the way to “bypass“ the rule and thus be annoying while at the same time not be reported.
There’s a balance here for transparency. Too transparent and we rely on pilots to not find loopholes in the manual. Too limit transparency and we will have pilots who are scared about getting violations.
The above is just my personal opinion and do correct me if I’m wrong.
I could be wrong too, but I don’t think there is a way to loophole your way through entering a runway without permission, or taxiing through another aircraft.
On the other hand, while the pilot is annoying and is doing wrong, an unintended benefit would be that it encourages regular manual updates and tweaks to ensure the rules don’t become stagnant or outdated. This evasion could also be a violation of itself, or submitted to supervisors/moderators for review and subsequent violation after the fact.
While we would like that to happen, there’s a lot of complications against this. IFATC manual can’t just state every type of situation out there and judgement is important as well.
I believe most of the stuff is answered above in detail by others, they made great points. To add up:
IFATC is not a cult. If you have read some of the complain threads in here, most controllers who replied definitely gave some constructive feedback to pilots AND controllers at fault. Its in the nature of humans to defend someone who is a part of a common team/organization. The appeals team exists to remove violations for anything which has been issued unfairly, which we always suggest to them.
Nothing is secret, only the internal procedures (which aren’t exactly needed to be able to be viewed by others), the new section in the manual(which, again, contains things which non IFATCs do not require, you will see for yourself if you join IFATC) are. As for the violations part, I do agree with Lagggpixel, there have been many people who actually found loopholes.
I would agree, and I added to the conversation in a positive and constructive manner. I acknowledged and thanked Thunderbolt for their exquisite response.
I never said it was a cult. I said, from an outsiders perspective it seems like one, and I provided an example from my own experience on the forum that informed that perception. Perception isn’t always reality, and that is why I’m asking these questions and seeking insight to further my own understanding.
This is a direct contradiction.
I’ve already addressed this point in my previous post:
Wouldn’t you agree that loopholes need to be fixed? Just like bugs in the simulator, they need squashing.
(Not asking for perfection, asking for consistent improvement over time)
At the end of the day, hiding that section of the manual is a great way to prevent loopholes being found in the first place. You can’t really make a loophole free manual in the end.
Further, there should be no reason why a pilot would need to see how the violations are dished out as long as they follow the instructions in a timely manner(timely referring to responding within 10ish seconds and taking action within a further 10ish seconds and not to take 5 minutes to turn from a heading of 250 to 270 e.g.).
Once you join IFATC, it will be pretty obvious about why we hide those sections of manuals. The main reason is just that under no circumstances would a pilot need to know the stuff in those sections. e.g. the types of violations and what level they are, nor would you need to know how checkride for a controller works, etc.
The manual is also aimed to be helpful to new controllers and/or pilots who wants to find out about the controlling process, and in my opinion, having a couple sections that are completely unrelated (to them) to them would not help that process.
On the other side, (not saying that this happens in IFATC) darkeness/secrecy is where corruption breeds and thrives. Happens in governments all around the world, all the time.
Sure, but is this timely response rule (10 seconds, if specifically articulated) published in the flying manual? I would argue this is the type of information that should be published and available because of its importance (safety, efficiency, and for the sake of knowledge/understanding), not hidden in a manual the public can’t access.
Tyler made a YouTube video about how controller check rides are executed, it was a while ago but I remember it.
Im guessing your referring to the currently published ATC manual which is strictly to help prospective controllers learn the basics of the IF ATC system, the meanings behind each command, using the correct commands at the correct times, and learning realistic procedures. It does not give insight into what I am asking about.
I am, at the end of the day, proposing a public version. It doesn’t need to have the “sensitive” information within it. I would constructively argue that the community as a whole would benefit from having a guide to the backbone of IFATC 's operation and having that information would foster trust, accountability, and cooperation between the two groups.
