Thursday, August 11, 2005

 

Mythical Metrics

One thing that pilots have been told over and over about the Lockheed Martin contract is that response times when contacting Flight Service will drop dramatically via a guaranteed 20-second answer to a phone call. Most pilots are already aware that fast responses are the norm, and the 20-second metric is rhetoric, meaning little in reality.

So let’s examine the telephone response time that can be expected. We at Flight Service Sigmet would like to point out a few hurdles that might get in the way of achieving that metric; some expected, some not.

1 – Slashed workforce. The number of controllers will be reduced from about 2200 to 1000. Now there’s no doubt that some efficiencies are to be had from the present system, but such an immediate, radical reduction is overkill when dealing with an untested system by a company who doesn’t understand the service they’re about to start providing.

2 – Increased data. This will lengthen briefing times in two forms. First, there’s the data itself. Understandably, pilots want as much data as possible. The more that can be accessed, the more that is wanted. In our experience pilots will always ask for a bit more than is available with current equipment and data. When something comes along to provide that extra capability, pilots take it and ask for a bit more. This is to be expected. But providing that ‘extra’ takes time.

Secondly, we must consider that each controller will be working with much larger areas. As we showed in a previous post, this will dilute area knowledge and experience. The likely result will be more double-checking on the part of the controller, further adding to briefing time.

3 – “At-will” employment. Up until now, controllers could only be fired for a justifiable reason. However, this will change since Lockheed-Martin is an ‘at-will’ employer, able to fire anytime for any reason. It is safe to assume that controllers will believe that any cause of liability could jeopardize their career. Add this to the two ‘increased data’ factors above and you have another reason to expect longer brief times as controllers, even more so than now, brief in such a way as to ‘cover’ themselves.

4 - Interactive briefing. This means that the pilot, via a web link, is looking at the same graphics as the controller during a weather brief. AOPA president Phil Boyer touts this as his organization’s idea, proud to have it included in the final product. But if anything will increase briefing times, it is likely to be this. We’ve had experience briefing pilots who are looking at their own data sources. It tends to result in more, not fewer questions, as the pilot substitutes his judgment for that of the controller, or begins asking detailed questions about what he’s seeing. These are not unreasonable things for the pilot to do, but let’s be realistic on how this will affect the ’20 second’ metric.

To sum up; the number of controllers will be cut in half, while a number of new factors will tend to increase briefing times. Someone is going to have to explain how this will add up to reduced ‘on hold’ times.

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