Large Transport
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 2
Troubleshooting; Workload; Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance
Procedure; Weather; Airspace Structure
[This] morning was an especially busy day in Sectors 88 & 90 with a lot of weather.  There was weather at the boundary of 88 and Sector 82/83; there was also weather along the boundary of 90 and ZMA Cerda sector.  Aircraft X was on L453 northbound at FL360.  Aircraft Y was northbound on L454 at FL360.  Aircraft Y wanted to deviate to the west around some weather ahead of him near GRAMN intersection; unfortunately he had traffic in front of him at FL350 & FL370; and so a climb of descent was not possible for his deviation to work.  My only option to give Aircraft Y the deviation was to climb Aircraft X to FL370; wrong for direction; in order to help out his company traffic.  About 20 minutes after he was issued the climb to FL370 Aircraft X requested a deviation right of course; which he had traffic at FL370 (Aircraft Z).  At this point I was falling behind due to the sector queue filling up with messages and almost every aircraft asking for a deviation and having to answer different lines.  I initially told Aircraft X that I was unable to give him a deviation left of course or right of course due traffic.  As this was going on I also had another flight; Aircraft A; sending a request for a deviation who was being difficult.  Aircraft A requested a climb to another altitude but no request for a deviation.  I told him unable higher due traffic and moved on to other messages.  Aircraft A came back with a message that said; 'ATC has to give us something; preferably the deviation; don't come back with nothing.'   Dealing with that message flustered me a little because I was already busy trying to delete garbage messages from the sector queue.  I called ARINC to have them tell Aircraft X that I was working on their clearance because they sent a second request for a deviation.  I sent a clearance for Aircraft X to descend and maintain FL365 and a deviation 80 miles right of course.  Unfortunately this clearance put him in conflict with numerous other aircraft.  Had I had the time to do a phone patch I would've; it was too busy trying to find the requests in the sector queue and rule out the non-necessary messages.  Also I should have suggested he descend to the emergency altitude instead of just clearing the aircraft to that altitude but I didn't think of that.  After I got the read back from the flight is when the sectors were finally split out.  The Aircraft X reported level at FL365 and initiated the deviation.  The other aircraft that were put in conflict with Aircraft X were Aircraft B; Aircraft Z; and Aircraft Y.  It also had other aircraft that it said was in conflict as well; but upon entering radar the Aircraft X pilot advised he had only gone 40 miles right of track instead of 80.I had asked for a 15 minute at altitude on L451 before the deviations started due to weather at the boundary of ZMA.  I told the Supervisor who called up TMU to issue the restriction.  It was never put up on the board in the area.  There should have been a 15 minute at altitude on every airway L451 - L455 due to weather and the amount of deviations through all of the Caribbean.  When there is known weather over the airspace an automatic 15 minutes at altitude should be issued to the radar sectors around us to be proactive and not reactive to what is happening.  ARINC messages that are requests should be a higher priority than the SIGMET being issued or that the flight hasn't responded to a SIGMET. This was one of the biggest problems I had been going through the 20 plus messages to find the requests because they have the same priority level.  Fix this huge problem. Pilot requests should always be a higher priority than anything else unless there is an emergency.
ZNY Controller reports of numerous flights affected by weather along route.  Had too many requests and not enough room to help out the aircraft.