Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 5
Situational Awareness; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic
Procedure; Human Factors; Airspace Structure; Airport
The Ground Controller approved opposite direction operation for a GPS Approach when we were landing and departing RWY 22 L/R. I circled Aircraft X 7 miles off of the departure end of Runway 22L; as soon as the pilot reported having the runway in sight; for left traffic Runway 22L. There was no incident with the procedure other than the cumbersome ODO (Opposite Direction Operation) rules designed for large IFR airports with large fast moving aircraft; not busy VFR airports with slow moving traffic. I am sure the rules were fractured as I explained to the Ground Controller to never accept or approve any ODO operation as it simply cannot be done with the rules as they exist. Traffic at the time were six or more aircraft in the touch and go pattern on the north runway; and I had three Touch and Go aircraft on my runway with other departures and arrivals.TRACON should never ever call and request an ODO with the current rules in place. Period. They should find some other alternative plan of action; especially when they can see the high traffic volume at FFZ at the time of their request. We would have to basically shut the airport down or execute a runway change in order to be in compliance. A runway change with 9 or more planes in the pattern would introduce a lot of unnecessary risk into the system to accommodate one IFR training flight. Also more training is apparently necessary so everyone at FFZ understands that ODO equals UNABLE. Simple; I get it; why can't everyone else.
FFZ Tower Controller had to delay an aircraft to accommodate an opposite direction operation. The Controller does not feel opposite direction operations should ever be approved if there is traffic in the pattern.