Traits of an air traffic controller
In a recent post on his ATC-blog, Wayne Farley listed 13 charecteristics of an air traffic controller
The list is very good indeed and that is why I decided to share it on this post.
I wanted to add some thoughts that the list made me think about:
First comments on the content of the list:
Wayne mentions multitasking as the number 2 characteristic: I think that nowadays there is a debate amongst HF specialists whether the skill is actually multi tasking [doing many things at once] which some doubt whether it actually exists in humans or the capacity of rapidly but sequentially moving between small tasks without losing the thread. Rapidity and not losing the thread are the key skills here.
Another item on the list, is making decisions under pressure. Here I just wanted to point to a different term for the same thing: Recognition primed decision: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_primed_decision which is a model also used outside air traffic control and which describes how people make quick, effective decisions when faced with complex situations. In this model, the decision maker is assumed to generate a possible course of action, compare it to the constraints imposed by the situation, and select the first course of action that is not rejected.
Then there is another characteristic that might be missing from the list. This is Recovery from failure. As like in any complex systems an amount of failures are inevitable, a controller needs to be able to recover and not give up.
Then some further related literature.
The list reminded me of a research I had read some time ago issued by Eurocontrol on the coginitive model and processes that govern air traffic control: and
another on the model for task and job description for air traffic controllers
The former document gives a basic understanding of the cognitive components and processes in ATC. It talks about situational awareness, decision making, information processing, long term and working memories as well as interactions with the system, and how these processes are used in monitoring, controlling, checking and diagnosing traffic.
The second document proposes a model which explains controllers’ tasks. The model is divided into cognitive tasks such as situational awareness and decision making, behavioral tasks such as R/T comms, providing separation and providing information to pilots, direct support tasks such as updating working knowledge and ensuring technical equipment is functioning, as well as indirect support tasks such as coordination with other team members and providing training.
Both documents provide an insight of what the job of air traffic controller is all about. Where Wayne’s list adds to this is in the emotional intelligence aspects of work like Authority, teamwork, tollerance, emotional stability and learning. The studies on these areas are spread elsewhere. [if you want ask me and we can find them together]
Finally some comments on the exclusivity element of being a controller.
Reading about the characteristics, made me think that in the end air traffic control is not as exclusive as some might want to portray it. But if it is not that exclusive, why do so many candidates fail training admittance tests and training? Wheras it is true that a controller’s job requires specific skills, I would like to point a difference between an innate set of skill and one which can be acquired through training. As with many other things in this world, people fall under a scale between those who have innate conditions of doing a task to those who cannot absolutely never acquire the skills even with a lot of training and devotion. The same is true for air traffic control. It requires a specific set of skills and quite a few people can never attain the level required ot safely practice the profession. However the distribution of those who can versus those who cannot, in my opinion, is not different from other professions. The problem with air traffic control is that in many cases there is a lot of potential wasted due to bad training design and approach and of attitude from those who are already part of the club and want to feel as part of the elite few. Due to this attitude towards becoming a controller, the selection test become harder, because they aready look at a considerably advanced level of skill developmen in some of the areas. I have written about this in a previous entry and will not harm to repeat my opinion almost 4 years later: In my opinion, if training [and consequently selection tests] could be redesigned with a more pedagogical approach to learner’s needs, more young people could become controllers. The investment up fron to change certain things might be steep, but the return on investment would mean more controller availaiblity and less wastege of [in pure terms] invested money in training hours down the drain because a student fails mid-way through his training.
