Flight planning personnel at Fintraffic’s FPC play a key role ensuring the safety of flights: the work is supportive in nature, but without it, both flying and air traffic control would be impossible. In May, the FPC's long-term chief retired, and Sanna Pettersson, who had worked in a variety of aviation tasks for many years, stepped into the position. What type of changes has the change of chief already brought about? How will the new training plan improve the efficiency of the FPC? What else other importance things have taken place in the unit recently?
Flight planning personnel working in the Air Navigation Services FPC are responsible for the distribution of information related to flights and for flight planning. The operations are based on statutory processes and all preparatory work related to flights is carried out with flight planning personnel. A flight is only transferred to air traffic control when people are physically seated in the aircraft.
“Flight planning services complement and improve the safety, capacity and efficiency of our customers’ operations. My aim as chief of the FPC is to bring clarity and consistency to long-term plans and internal communications. I want to be as transparent and equitable a chief as possible, who will require a lot, but can also be flexible,” Sanna explains her objectives for her new role.
Multiple concrete changes to the unit's operating methods
Although only a few months have passed since the change of chief, the FPC has already seen several concrete changes in its operating methods. For example, human resources management has been simplified by transferring various sets of instructions and shift lists from paper to electronic format, and it has been agreed that, in the future, all administrative matters related to personnel will go through the head of the unit.
"While matters related to human resources have been simplified so they are supervised by one person, the focus in other matters has been on sharing responsibility. There must be a backup for each of our tasks in order to ensure that specialised information that is important for critical operations is available 24/7," Sanna explains the background of the changes she has made. Sanna has started to promote a longer-term systematic approach together with FPC Management.
"Our work comprise both operatively fast-paced tasks and tasks requiring analysis. Once we are able to examine our operations a little further down the line together, we can move from reacting to a more proactive approach to work. This way we can allocate enough working time to the most important issues in terms of the whole and avoid unnecessary interruptions that result from having to react to unexpected situations that could have been anticipated with a different operating model," Sanna continues.
New training plan enhances training and provides flexibility in recruitment
One significant, recent change at the unit has been the new training plan for flight planning personnel. Previously, new FPC employees have participated in the basic training for air traffic control and received workstation training in connection with operative work. This has contributed to determining the rhythm and duration of training, and has tied the training of new employees to the start dates of the air traffic control course. The new training plan will not change the actual content of the training, but will allow for more flexible and efficient provision of information similar to that provided in the basic course by the FPC unit and the Avia College instructors.
The flight planning service is a unique entity in Finland, and there is no equivalent to it anywhere in Europe. The FPC has received several training enquiries from international air navigation service operators. Sanna explains that the possibility for international training will not be ruled out, but there must be sufficient resources for planning and implementing the training before committing to it.
