Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 2.5
Workload; Confusion; Distraction; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance
Weather; Procedure; Airspace Structure
Sector 82/83 was combined; there was weather south of my airspace in non-radar in Sector 88. The amount of traffic that was routed down L453 and L452 was beyond too much to be able to coordinate properly with other sectors and talk to the aircraft at the same time. I had a hand off come over so I could concentrate on communicating with the aircraft. In the hour that I sat at the sector there was 8 planes routed over L453. L452 had 15 aircraft routed at the same time as the aircraft on the parallel route. This is entirely unreasonable to have that many aircraft filing on those two routes especially when there is weather south of the airspace and side by side cannot be done. The workload was too much for me and the Hand Off Controller. The planes were deviating south and the routes were bad going to their destinations. Many planes had to be re-routed or given an even altitude southbound (IAFDOF) in order to coordinate all of this traffic. Washington Center was late on sending hand offs and giving us wrong for direction aircraft in order to keep them all separated. There were 23 planes in the course of less than an hour that were going southbound. ZDC's TMU should have seen that they were handing off 15 planes to us and given us some time between these aircraft or had a restriction on their board. We do not have the same kind of separation standards that they do in radar and they should know this.   When it is proposed to have as many aircraft as there were over one fix there needs to be a restriction in place so this doesn't happen again. There is weather over the ocean and ZDC should be able to provide at least 10 minutes between planes at altitude. Wrong for direction should only be used as a last resort.
ZNY Controller reports of an overabundance of traffic that is diverting due to weather along two usable routes.