Guidance Documents

One of the core objectives of the Federation is “To promote and uphold a high standard of knowledge and professional efficiency among Air Traffic Controllers”. To achieve this, the Federation conducts several educational initiatives, one of which is the production of guidance material for the distribution to the Member Associations. The Federation also conducts training workshops on several important topics details of which can be found in the Workshops section.

Disclaimer

The information provided in the following is guidance material only, and is based upon international standards, best practices, and IFATCA policies. All users should confirm the requirements of their national regulations and procedures when reviewing this guidance material.

Unstable Approaches Guidance Material

Safety is the number one priority for IFATCA and the entire aviation industry, and we are most effective when we all work together to make it ever safer. With this goal in mind, the Unstable Approaches: Risk Mitigation Policies, Procedures and Best Practices, second edition, has been collaboratively written by IATA, CANSO, IFATCA and IFALPA, to address the problems surrounding unstable approaches, a major contributor to accidents and is available for download free of charge for all our Member Associations.

This is the third edition (2017)

Checklist European Regulation 2017/373

We've compiled a checklist for Member Associations to verify their ANSP/Country's compliance with European Regulation 2017/373 on stress, fatigue and psychoactive substances. While obviously most relevant to European associations, it may be of use to others to crosscheck how they are doing in respect to this regulation.

Fatigue Management Guidance for ATS Providers

Fatigue is an inevitable hazard in the around-the-clock aviation environment. Fatigue management provides structured methods to address the safety implications of fatigue. ICAO, IFATCA and CANSO have produced a guidance manual that describes science-based and operationally-oriented fatigue management processes.

Fatigue

A short guide to human fatigue and associated risk based management Systems for air traffic control.

Drone Sighting Briefing Leaflet

Joint IFALPA-IFATCA leaflet for pilots and air traffic controllers to improve the information flow between the two groups and to coordinate the response when a drone is reported.

TCAS Procedures

The correct reaction to a TCAS RA by both controllers and aircrew is essential to the effectiveness of this safety net.

ILO Recommendations

In 1979, an ILO expert meeting published 52 recommendations that cover industrial relations and re-affirms the freedom to create and join any organisation or union. It recommends that ATCOs participate in introducing new systems and automation. It also affirms that a civilian ATC system is preferable to a military one. It says that in case of labour disputes, ATCOs should not be replaced by unqualified personnel. It defines the maximum number of hours and shift length to help reduce ATCO fatigue. It determines that the maximum number of hours per week should be less than those of a typical employee. Shift lengths for busy positions should not exceed eight hours and 10-12 h for others. A break of at least 30 min should be given for every two hours on position and extra leave days be given to shift working staff. Remuneration should be comparable to airline

pilots. There should be explicit legal liabilities defined to protect controllers in case of incident or accident. Career planning, training and retraining issues are also covered. The conditions to recruit ab-initio controllers are defined: they should be between 17 and 25 years of age with education at university entry-level. ATCOs should have regular refreshers courses, employment security, loss of license insurance, etc. and much more. Every group of controllers wishing to start a union or an association would be advised to review these recommendations.