Development of technical and procedural requirements to support a system of flexible endorsement for upper airspace air traffic controllers

Abstract: A severe shortage of air traffic controllers (ATCO) poses new challenges for air navigation services. They are only allowed to work in sectors where they have received certification including successful on-the-job training. This paper presents a method that makes it possible to aggregate the work experience of controllers in recent months and assess how efficiently and safely they could organize air traffic in another sector of upper airspace without a full traditional OJT. Rising air traffic volumes coupled with a simultaneous decline in qualified applicants for the air traffic controller profession means that some sectors cannot be adequately staffed for capacity reasons, particularly in peak seasons with many flight movements. New ATCOs receive a widespread theoretical training, after which they undergo extensive on-the-job training to get a new sector endorsement. The result is an individual experience-vector consisting of seventeen indices, which can now be compared with an expectation-vector based on the predicted traffic data for a sector and calculated using the same functions. An automated comparison of these vectors provides supervisors with a tool for finding ATCOs with sufficient experience and competence who could be deployed in the event of a temporary shortage of ATCOs to any sector. Additionally, IFAV3 also deals with the legal adjustments that would have to be made for the deployment of controllers in non-endorsed sectors. The results of this experience validation presented here, provide valuable insights into the feasibility and potential benefits of a more flexible endorsement system, its impact on the work of air traffic controllers, and contribute to the further development of the upper airspace air traffic control systems.

Presented in: German Aerospace Congress (DLRK) 2025 (DLRK 2025), Augsburg, Germany, 23 – 25 September 2025