Oakland Oceanic is moving!

[Alexandra Robison]

8 minutes ago, Joshua Micallef said:

Then why make it more stringent for people to provide ATC Services to them?

Poor Hawaii is going to have a lot of dead space around them now...

I was curious about the veracity of the claim "Hawaii is going to have a lot of dead space around them", so I queried the database.

Since 2020-01-01, VATUSA members have the highest number of connections to any ZAK position with 242, followed by VATPAC members with 43. Take that for what it is worth.

[Joshua Micallef]

1 minute ago, Zain Khan said:

 

What I'm talking about is VATUSA managing their ZAK airspace and they like to do it that way but then here's VATPAC and they have no administration over ZAK and they're on a uproar about the restricting of airspace. Maybe it makes sense in the sense that the moves don't respect the Agreement, but in terms of time or service, it's not VATPAC's problem isn't it?

The uproar is about the agreement potentially not being correctly dealt with.

[William Teale]

1 minute ago, Zain Khan said:

 

What I'm talking about is VATUSA managing their ZAK airspace and they like to do it that way but then here's VATPAC and they have no administration over ZAK and they're on a uproar about the restricting of airspace. Maybe it makes sense in the sense that the moves don't respect the Agreement, but in terms of time or service, it's not VATPAC's problem isn't it?

I suppose. Still, had you and I had an agreement, perhaps where I agreed to loan you my car, and at short notice I told you to get stuffed, you cant use my car, you might feel a little miffed. Particularly if Id done so by breach of contract.

[Nicholas Lascko]

18 minutes ago, Sean Harrison said:

I used to do more hours on PGUM, but kept getting booted from visiting status.  Guam is hardly active now, but that’s what they want.  Same with ZAK.

Guam is not Oakland ARTCC or POP jurisdiction. It’s Pacific Control Facility’s (formerly Honolulu Control Facility’s, a separate VATUSA faculty) area. So that’s irrelevant to the staffing concerns with Oakland taking control of San Francisco Radio/Oakland Oceanic. 

[Kirk Christie]

11 minutes ago, Alexandra Robison said:

Since 2020-01-01, VATUSA members have the highest number of connections to any ZAK position with 242, followed by VATPAC members with 43. Take that for what it is worth.

Seems fairly reasonable give the difference in membership numbers between the two DIvisions.

Seing as we are looking up numbers, ZOA have 6 controllers on their roster endorsed for Oceanic. 236 of those other VATUSA controllers now have to apply for visiting status with ZOA.

 

Edited August 29, 2021 at 05:36 AM by Kirk Christie

[Bobby Melton]

1 minute ago, Kirk Christie said:

Seing as we are looking up numbers, ZOA have 6 controllers on their roster endorsed for Oceanic. 236 of those other VATUSA controllers now have to apply for visiting status with ZOA.

 

While this is an incorrect interpretation of the post, I shall reply, it is an easy 2 minute form to fill out and a quick GRP check. It is not hard to do 🙂 

[Tim Barber]

Hello All,

This is an important discussion, however the posts here have reached the point of not being helpful to the process.  To be clear, the VATSIM Board of Governors has not addressed this topic in a meeting, and no motions have been proposed or passed regarding this topic.  If it is determined that a BoG discussion and vote is required, then it will be added to the agenda of our next meeting.

In the meantime, I have emailed the parties and offered my assistance in resolving any outstanding issues.  For now, I will lock this thread and would ask everyone to be patient while this is worked through.

Many thanks,

[Ryan Parry]

In light of all that has happened we are suspending the September 1 date to transition and a meeting is being planned between the partnerships Division Directors to hash things out. 

I would like to take a moment to offer some clarification and provide an update on this thread. There is a lot of misinformation being spilled out, and things have changed.

First, I see ZOA being accused of a lot of things and having the fingers pointed at them unfairly. The only place ZOA has in this discussion is with the future of ZAK, not the current status nor the past. Under the current Pacific Oceanic Agreement ZOA has absolutely no say or authority with ZAK. It is VATUSA and the VATUSA Division Directors designee (that would be me) that manages ZAK in the partnership. This is just one of the issues we sought to change, ZAK is controlled by ZOA controllers in the real world and we felt they should have the ability to manage their own oceanic airspace just as other VATUSA ARTCC's are able to manage their oceanic airspace. 

The idea that VATUSA is unilaterally withdrawing from the agreement without any process is not accurate. There has clearly been a failure in communication and we are working to correct this now. The process thus far has been this. I wrote an initial proposal offering several different ways ZAK could be managed, which included staying in the partnership, making ZAK a visitor only VATUSA facility, and giving ZOA full control. We opted for giving ZOA full control to bring them inline with the other oceanic airspace within VATUSA, as well as on VATSIM. From there another more detailed proposal was created detailing the what, when, and why we wanted to do this. I sent that proposal to my division director, who signed off on it and sent it to our RVP who also signed off on it. I know this proposal also made it to the other RVP involved and we were under the assumption it was agreed upon because we got the all clear to proceed. A letter of withdrawal was drafted and sent to our RVP to be disseminated to the other partners (this was done through the RVP because 1. we had difficulty fining other partners contact information, and 2. it should be officially done through the RVP). 

During the process we received very little communication from the other partners. I received one email from VATNZ that did not oppose the withdrawal, but requested a Discord be made so that FE's and staff could liaise in. We finally heard from the VATPAC Division Director 15AUG21 which was in support of ZOA taking over ZAK, but also a new LOA being drafted. This seemed to be part of the communication break down, VATNZ and VATPAC didn't get information earlier when they should have. VATUSA had set a September 1 date and there was no indication we could not move forward with that date, so we did. 

It is VATUSA's position that we want to have good working relationships with the other Divisions in the Pacific and agreements that benefit everybody. It is also our view that ZAK is sovereign American airspace that ZOA should be in control of. We'll be working closely with VATPAC and VATNZ to work something out and information regarding a new agreement will be posted when available.