Just imagine, for a moment, if this position indeed existed in a modern airline. Is it a wild idea to promote the people who are essentially running the daily operation of your easily multi-billion euros worth of assets? Why do we still apply 20th-century solutions for 21st-century problems?
In the last decade, I have worked in multiple OCCs, both small and huge ones. Organised ones, and carpe diem ones. No matter where I worked, something didn’t feel right. I am sure you know this feeling. I could not define what it was, but something was clearly off. Recently, preparing for yet another authority audit, under the shower – where else? – this idea came to my mind.
What if we, yes, we, the industry collectively, would create a position called the Nominated Person Operations Control? Let me walk you through my thoughts.
Everyone on every media outlet agrees that any airline’s Operation Control Centre is critical for daily success. We throw words like ‚focal point‘, ’nerve centre‘, ‚key decisions‘, ‚time critical‘, and ‚high-pressure environment‘. Oh, and of course, ’safety is our top priority‘. And pretty much this is where our agreement ends. These are very nice words, but unfortunately, empty. And I also dare to tell why: because people in charge – in REAL charge, on a Nominated Person level – are rarely involved in the hyperdynamic pulse of daily operation (and seldom do they come from OCC background).
For those new to aviation and who have not given up reading a few lines back, let me quickly clarify the current structure of any air operator in Europe. Authorities mandate certain positions to be filled by qualified persons. These positions are responsible for a particular area of the organisation. These areas are:
- Flight Operations
- Ground Operations
- Continuous Airworthiness
- Crew Training
- Safety
- Security
- Compliance
Some of them (the first four on the list) are called Nominated Persons (or NPs); the rest are simply called Managers. Plus, one person above all of them, the Accountable Manager, is responsible for all the persons‘ work from the list.
Authorities allow one person to hold more than one position in small operations, and cross-deputation is also very common.
Don’t get me wrong, all these positions are critical and exist for solid reasons. However, persons in these positions are responsible for strategic steering, not tactical decision-making. The NPFO is responsible for the policies of flight planning and the structure of the flight plan but rarely – if ever – dispatches an actual flight. The NPGO is responsible for ground handling procedures – for example, aircraft, passenger and cargo handling, dangerous goods or aircraft deicing – but rarely has to deal with air traffic slots in case of delays caused by ground activities.
There is a reason I’m pointing out these two positions. The industry is divided over whether the Operations Control Center—and its manager—reports to Flight Operations or the Ground Operations boss. It is really the operator’s choice. I have seen both, and I cannot clearly say which is better. Nevertheless, one thing is for sure: Running an OCC successfully requires a particular set of skills and a very particular mindset from management.
Let me address the necessary skills first. Some decisions in OCCs must be made within minutes if not seconds. I give two very typical examples.
- A full flight of 230 passengers inbound to your hub is delayed by 30 minutes but carries a group of 25 passengers connecting to a long-haul flight with a minimum connecting time of 50 minutes. What do you do? Instinctively, delaying the long-haul flight is a reasonable decision. What if, after publishing the delay, it turns out that the Head of State is on board that long-haul flight?
- An airborne flight calls on a satellite connection and asks for an airport suggestion for an immediate diversion due to a medical emergency. There are three possible options en route that the flight could divert with a similar diversion time. All three of them are served by your airline. The decision is made, the diversion is executed, and the passenger is saved. However, the airport that you chose does not have the ground equipment for this type of aircraft, so the flight cannot continue to its destination in a timely manner.
Both are real-life examples of situations where a critical decision had to be made. None of the decisions, however, involved any of the nominated persons. There was simply no time to contact them. Fast decision-making is the daily bread and butter of an Operations Control Center.
The second critical requirement, as mentioned earlier, is a particular mindset of the management. And it is a TRUE non-punitive approach to the work of OCC. The term ’no blame culture‘ is perhaps the second most commonly used expression after ’safety is our top priority‘. Let me just mention one term to tear that to pieces: delay codes. Anyone who spent a little time in airline operations and had to deal with delay codes understands precisely what I am talking about.
The management must have a non-punitive approach towards the OCC, where the most crucial element to embrace is that decisions are made based on an incomplete and fragmented set of information. In both of my real-life examples, decisions had to be made based on incomplete information. Was a decision made? Yes. Was it the best? Yes, in that moment in time.
And time is the key here. The timeline the current postholder structure works on is measured in weeks and months. New flight planning rules, new fuel schemes, new flight plan layouts or new ground equipment implementations, new boarding procedures, new dangerous goods materials, etc.
The timeline an Operations Control Center works on is, at best, 48 hours ahead. Anything beyond that is just wishful thinking from the OCC’s perspective.
What is more, most of the functions within the OCC are not even regulated by authorities. These functions are mostly:
- Flight planning and filing
- Air traffic slot management
- Delay management and mitigation
- Crew control
- Disruption management
Of course, all the rules are written in the Operations Manuals, but that has nothing to do with the daily implementation of these rules. To give two elementary examples. All flight planning rules are described in detail in Chapter 8 of OM-A. But do you know where the flight plan goes in Europe? Where do we file it? To the system of Eurocontrol. At best, Eurocontrol, as an organisation, is defined in three lines in the OM-A, and that is it, not one single extra word. And to be correct, I must admit that flight planning is still the most regulated and well-defined area of operations control. There are books about it, and some countries even issue licenses for this function. However, EASA, the main regulatory body in Europe, has a gap to cover in regulating training and licensing. Additionally, flight planning accounts for a maximum of 20% of what an OCC does.
The second example concerns crew control. Chapter 7 of the same OM-A defines all the duty time limitations. However, no training requirements are specified for crew controllers. In such a mission-critical role, where the success of a flight can depend on the communication and interpersonal skills of the individual on shift, the lack of communication and cross-cultural training is simply mind-boggling.
Let’s not open the chapter about the tools used within the OCC. That is a topic for a different article; here, it should be enough to mention that most of these tools, which are critical – and compliant – for daily operations, are hardly ever used or even understood by the Nominated Persons. Simple things – like inserting a take-off alternate in the flight plan or delaying the crew reporting times – are well defined in the books. However, I am convinced that the number of NPs who could actually technically execute these tasks is slim. In the meantime, for example, they can brilliantly execute a go-around at decision height in an actual aircraft.
After all this, imagine an organisational setup where the OCC has a direct leader in a Nominated Person position. An organisation where the daily tactical challenges are represented – and, let’s face it, accounted for – at the highest level of an air operator tactical decision-making board. Where the Nominated Person actually understands and has hands-on experience in executing every element of the daily work. Yes, as little things as delaying a flight plan (which has an allocated CTOT of 65 minutes? Does this problem ring a bell?)
Introducing such a function would provide a centralised figure responsible for overseeing and standardising operational control functions and could centralise tactical decision-making.
Finally, as a cherry on the cake, such a position could give a much clearer career path for talented individuals currently involved in operations control. If we want to be honest, currently, there is nothing much a talented flight planner, ops controller, or crewing specialist can climb to on an 8-10-year perspective within the same organisation. Yes, they can become duty managers or, eventually, heads of OCCs. But they rarely become Nominated Persons or anything of the higher role: Accountable Managers or, eventually, C-level executives. I am not saying it does not happen, but it is not as clear of a path as for a pilot to bear pretty much any of the Flight Ops / Training / Safety / Security / Compliance management positions or for engineers to become heads of Continous Airworthiness, or for ground handling agents to become Ground Ops managers.
To conclude, working in an operations control centre is challenging. Yes, it carries daily successes and rewards, but even within the industry, many people – unfortunately including the regulators – don’t know what and how is happening inside this magic box.
Given the increasing complexity of airline operations, a new role of Nominated Person Operations Control would not only be a valuable addition but a necessary evolution in modern aviation. As the industry continues to adapt to new challenges, we could set a new standard for operational excellence, ensuring that European aviation remains at the forefront of aviation innovation, safety and efficiency.
