Date Posted:23:02:39 12/25/08 Thu Author: Chris Subject: Re: TMC In reply to:
kl
's message, "Re: TMC" on 12:55:45 12/21/08 Sun
The two sides to TMU:
Those people who work there have a career-long assignment to TMU. If they want to, they can elect to return to the floor and work traffic, but they will never be asked to. They don't hear much praise from controllers, mostly complaints. Controllers don't have much respect for them. They are often looked at as "traffic dodgers". There is very very little accountability when someone screws up in TMU. Those that work there do like it a lot. They make controller pay, they don't control airplanes, and when they screw up someone else (the actual air traffic controller) will fix it.
When weather is bad, they are busy. Very busy. But it is more of a negotiated, methodical busy. Reroutes, airport restrictions, and other coordination with adjacent sectors/airspace can be daunting. But TMU can put out all of the weather reroutes and restrictions that they want to, if the Pilot is not comfortable with the route, he is the final authority and will do what is best regardless of some flow controller's procedure.
TMU was started right after the PATCO strike in '81. The idea was to restrict and "manage" traffic so that the reduced staffing could handle the demand. However, when the strike issue was resolved and the staffing numbers returned to adequate levels, TMU never went away.
Oh, in ZTL, TMU doesn't maintain any currency in the area. They don't even walk down and say hi. Not even the ones that used to work there..
Metering, (Time-based Metering) doesn't work. Even though the TMU folk say it does... It doesn't work. I'll say it again... It does not work.
