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Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:29:01 +0200
From: Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>
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Subject: Air traffic control and  congestion
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Date: 2008-06-23T13:29:02+02:00
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There seems to be more to ATC than I had thought previously,
things that seem non-technical, but only at first sight.

A friend is working at an airport. Luggage. Boarding, etc. This
weekend, he explained how the schleduling of flights is affected
by what can only be attributed to calculable adminstrative issues
at all levels. Or at least, they are observable.
Quite consistently, a chaotic bustle is the foreseeable outcome of
certain types of organizational decision making. The normal flow
of things at the airport is disrupted.

I was wondering whether the daily effects such as the following
are shaping the design of Air Traffic Conctrol software at all?
It seems like some of the effects can be almost formally described
and be put in a facts database.

- Numbering of gates. Number 80 can be the logical successor of
   number 39. It is in another building. Now this building happens
   to also have number 40...

- No open stairs between floors (that may or may not serve Schengen
   flights), only an elevator for 3 persons.  One flight is announced
   for the wrong floor and a good part of the entire terminal is
   blocked by the moving crowd.

- Conveyors that have to be stopped because two persons are on
   sick leave---staffing is at a minimum for reasons of competitive
   pricing (or any comparative form of it). No luggage...

- Total failure of automatic luggage recognition caused by
   a minor computer error, but no one is around who has the training
   to resolve the issue.

These mishaps can and *do* cause significant delays.
But they can be phrased as IF ... THEN ... sentences.

Does ATC software address such influences at all?
Does it sound familiar, maybe?


-- Georg