‘Swans on the surface': What it takes to be an air traffic controller

Sydney Morning Herald

19 hours ago

Melbourne Aerodrome and Airspace Services head Leanne Costin says: 'If you are tapping your foot on the floor, or if you're fidgeting and nervous as you do the work, this is not the job for you.
'You can't be stressed doing this.'
Calm and controlled. And alert: there are far more coffee mugs in the tower than controllers on duty. An espresso machine can be seen.
The casual dress code is almost like out of a tech start-up: lanyards, business shirts, jeans, hoodies, shorts and thongs, even. What counts is the quality of work.
The tower is fully staffed at about 6am and until about 9pm and then it and when it goes into overnight schedule.
There are two bedrooms in the Melbourne control tower – one on the seventh floor and another down on the ground floor – for a quick nap. Air traffic controllers who have had a busy night, for example, can recharge before they get on the road to drive home. Having a dedicated place for a quick nap is part of a fatigue management plan.
There are 902 civilian air traffic controllers in the country, and they all work for Airservices Australia; it holds a monopoly on firefighting services at airports, too, also employing just over 1000 firefighters at airport's nationwide.
ASA is a government-owned entity that raises money from fees charged to the airlines for its services.
It's a big job. ASA is responsible for 11 per cent of the world's airspace that runs up across Australia and out west across the Indian Ocean to Mauritius and Colombo. The organisation conducted 3.9 million aircraft movements – take-offs, landings, midair direction – in 2024.
This isn't only air traffic approaching and departing airports, but aircraft en route, at 38,000 feet, crossing the continent or travelling to and from Asia, North and South America, and Africa.
The office place calm of Melbourne and Brisbane, where the other air traffic control centre is located, is shielded from outside disruptions. ASA faces a number of obstacles that can buffet the organisation: not only does its ageing equipment need upgraded, commercial aviation's post-COVID bounce back has increased the workload. Uncrewed aircraft and drones are also beginning to fill Australia's skies. Adding to the complexity stew, the military has 12 bases around the country that have functioned as their own 'islands' of air traffic control within Australia.
Airservices Australia CEO Rob Sharp notes that improvements at airports will increase capacity for terminals and airlines in Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne, where a third runway is being built. Sydney is getting a fresh new airport with Western Sydney International coming online next year. But infrastructure support services needed to accommodate growth are in some cases '30 or 40 years' old, Sharp said.
For this reason, the government was looking ahead when in 2009 it ordered Airservices Australia and the Department of Defence to work to harmonise the control of civilian and military aerospace. The goal is to build operational resilience, safety and increase efficiency by reducing the amount of system-to-system co-ordination and double-ups.
ASA's decision to back the OneSKY project, a plan to fuse civil and military air control, is 'globally quite unique', Sharp said on one afternoon at the Melbourne facility.
AirServices Australia anticipates that it will save $2.7 billion over 20 years – once the long-delayed program is fully operational.
'When you look at the geopolitics, I think this system will really stand Australia in good stead,' said Sharp.
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China's decision to conduct naval drills in the Tasman Sea in February is a vivid example. Australia first learnt of it through a Virgin pilot who flagged it with air traffic controllers.
Sharp says OneSKY will create more backbone for air control during climate-related events, too. Should a cyclone force the closure of one facility, another air traffic control centre can temporarily provide cover over the network. It 'gives us a lot more resilience to the weather that is occurring'.
Most controllers aren't up in the tower but downstairs at Air Traffic Service Centre, a much larger room on the ground of the ASA's compound, on the far side of Melbourne's Airport, away from the terminals and parking.
There are banks of radio scopes where the controllers sit, directing the air traffic over Australia, which itself is spliced up into smaller sectors.
The vibe is alert but calm. The overhead lights are slightly dimmed. The intensity of fluorescent bulbs is reduced so that it doesn't wear out the eyes of air traffic controllers, who work for about two hours and then take a one-hour break, and then another two hours so they remain fresh for the entire process.
To look closely at the screens, laid out in four banks, there's so much information overlapping that it looks, when zoomed out, like smudges of coal.
It's only when you zoom in, and continue to zoom in, you can see the smudging is a cluster of symbols for aircraft in motion on the screen.
The amount of information and communication is intense.
From the time a flight pushes off from Sydney to the time it arrives at the gate in Melbourne, it would be passed through the hands of 14 controllers and five supervisors.
As a systems supervisor, Sean Howard monitors the consoles used by the air traffic controllers. He will both react to and prepare for changes, including if there is a technology issue that affects coverage, for example, a radar malfunction.
Howard said his work is 'like a triage doctor in an emergency room – we have to adapt to any issue'.
The banks of radio scopes correspond to the geography in the country and beyond. On one row, there is coverage for Adelaide, Tasmania, then Melbourne, Sydney, then the Northwest, west and south of Melbourne, the Grampians area.
And then there's Perth, whose aerospace has its own unique challenges because it accommodates fly in, fly out traffic which follows surges on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Howard said: 'Controllers try not to focus too much on thinking about the number of people they are looking after [on board the planes].'
'Rather we are part of the overall industry team, the pilots and airline staff are looking after the people on the plane and we are looking after the planes, ensuring every flight is given our equal and full attention.'
His work 'is about resolving information on screens'.
Sean says he's not an 'aviation nerd' by any means. While many ATCs fly and love planes, many others have the skills and knowledge required 'without a passion for aircraft'.
Howard's career in air traffic control began just after high school, when he discovered the ATC Learning Academy in Tasmania where he grew up. At 17, he applied, completed the aptitude testing and interview, and started training. He began work in Melbourne at the start of 1994 and has worked as air traffic controller, line manager and supervisor. ATC 'is the only profession I have ever had and I look forward to coming to work every day'.
Costin, the Melbourne Aerodrome head, said air traffic control was 'about task completion'.
'Identify the issue, solve it, even if it means handing a task off to the right person ... do that, then move on.'
'Controllers need to be able to take multi-inputs – they need to be able to multi-task.'
It's also about decent pay. It's one of the few roles that can attract a six-digit starting salary for a qualified worker.
There is no single background that prepares or forms the ideal personality for the work.
Costin, who began her career as an elementary school teacher, said other jobs people have done before coming to air traffic control included being a military air traffic controller, police officers, firefighters, teachers, and even a croupier.
O'Keefe, the line leader, says: 'It takes a certain personality that can take direction and work with others.'
The ability to prioritise information is key. O'Keefe says air traffic controllers take two hours to tell a joke. 'They can start the joke, pause to complete a separate task, then come back to the joke, pause again for another task, and then come back to the same spot they left in the joke, and finish it.'
'This takes a certain personality,' she said.
Although a calm prevails in the air traffic control centre, the upgrade of a system supporting 155 million passenger movements a year has experienced some turbulence. ASA's contract with French-company Thales, the maker of the joint civil-military air traffic management system (CMATS), has been audited three times by the Australian National Audit Office.
From February 2018 to the end of 2024, OneSKY has added $160 million in cost overruns on a $1.2 billion contract.
Thales' delivery of some elements of the contract had been slowed by COVID lockdowns, which prevented work being done onsite.
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The complexity and stakes require years of testing to ensure the equipment and controllers gel into a seamless process.
On the day the media visited, a handful of engineers were scattered through the brighter OneSky ATSC room. They were doing checks on the system – with access to live data inputs – but unable to output commands.
The next step, ASA says, will be to bring over air traffic controllers into the new by 2027 for onsite testing.
At that time, the lights will be dimmed, and the complexity of the work – along with the needed calm – will take up a new home within the Melbourne complex.