Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 7
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic; Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert
Weather; Airspace Structure; Company Policy; Procedure; Staffing
I was the Radar Controller working Aircraft X. They were direct on flight plan and about to enter a sector's airspace at 28;000 feet. Before I called on a handoff I noticed Conflict Alert was going off between the Aircraft X and another aircraft in the next sector's airspace at 28;000 feet. I called them and said 'I am going to take my Aircraft X down to FL260 to miss the traffic; handoff.' The Controller stated they were too busy to accept a handoff on the aircraft even though they were in conflict with one of their airplanes. They stated they would 'watch him though'. I didn't have time to argue for separation purposes so I hung up the line. Aircraft X needed to deviate for weather; so I cleared him to deviate and descended them to 26;000 feet expeditiously for the traffic. My D-side had to call back later and verify they were too busy to work the aircraft.What added to this situation was the complexity of the airspace. Center Traffic Management Unit had routed 'off-loads' into my sector to 'get in before the weather.' The problem was that the meter numbers were 4-7 on each aircraft coming in; so speed and vectors needed to be applied to each aircraft to comply with the A80 LOA (Letter of Agreement). No guidance or relief was given to us by calling ZJX to slow ATL arrivals down. We had to shut them off ourselves. By the time the off loads were at our sector; Approach cut our arrivals off and I was forced to put several aircraft; already on vectors; into holding; while other traffic situations were present. In the middle of this situation we were getting aircraft that were routed through the middle of our arrivals holding. I have worked at this Center for over 10 years now and that was as unsafe a situation that should have been helped by TMU (Traffic Management Unit) as I can remember. For a facet of ATC that has the 'big picture' to drop the ball and reroute that many aircraft into an already saturated sector when they should have had the foresight to know that the weather would be over the field before they landed is unacceptable.Also the Supervisor for our Area needs to be held accountable for not splitting the sector due to volume. I was also told by my Supervisor on that shift that the two offloads coming from adjacent areas should have been held in their airspace but that was either not communicated to the controllers by management or the request was simply not followed.
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ZJX Center Controllers reported sector workload was excessive due to lack of effective traffic flow management during a period of weather deviations.