Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Communication Breakdown; Confusion; Situational Awareness; Workload
ATC Issue All Types
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors; Procedure
First major push of the morning and Florida traffic was about 80% established; meaning at altitude and on their established routes. Thunderstorms in the Atlantic had forced everyone on the inland routes (over CHS) area so there was considerably more traffic on that route than normal. After several minutes at the sector; my supervisor told us that there are suddenly restrictions for MIA; FLL and MCO; 15 miles in trail; regardless of altitude and ORL aircraft had to be at FL340 and below. The restriction should have been in place prior earlier; so there was no opportunity to take preventative actions. What was a safe and orderly flow was now a very complex and quickly became an UNSAFE situation. Not only did I have to watch and sequence my flow but I had to watch and sequence the sector beneath me and merge our traffic. You want to talk about chaos! For every aircraft that you had to turn to get the mile in trail restriction; another aircraft was close behind at the same altitude who needed sequenced with someone else. Half were on your frequency and half were not. Every aircraft turned; now conflicted with someone else who a few minutes ago was not traffic. The last straw in all of this was trying to get the altitude restriction on the MCO's. Most were aircraft were established at FL400. I had to not only turn them for the miles in trail restriction but also had to vector the aircraft to get below others at FL360 and FL340 who were not in my sectors altitude stratums. If you vectored to get the MCO down then you screwed up everything else. I can't tell you how much time this has happened; working the established flow and all of a sudden there is a TMU restriction that complicates everything. The TMU should have given the restriction to ZDC TMU in a timelier manner. ZDC TMU should have rejected the restrictions or negotiated a later time to affect them. My supervisor did what he/she could do and off course we tried to comply; but the situation was still preventative and unnecessary!
In the morning ZDC TMU put out MIT restrictions to MCO; FLL and MIA for inland routing per request of ZJX TMU due to volume on J121. They also added a restriction for MCO AOB FL340 at the ZDC/ZJX boundary. When the restriction came out Area 3 had multiple groupings of aircraft going to MCO and FLL. The restrictions added a great deal of complexity. I called ZJX to get some relief on the MCO restriction (10 vs 15 MIT RALT). At first I was told no. I explained that we were having a great deal of difficulty meeting all the restrictions. I was then told 10 would be acceptable. When TMU put out the restrictions the airborne inventory was already high. It was at the point that any in trail/ ground delays would not help. The Controllers worked through it and the Controller at J48 took some MCO traffic at higher altitudes which helped immensely. I would recommend that before restrictions are sent out to the areas; that TMU from all facilities involved take a look at what is already in the air and put in REASONABLE restrictions. ZJX wanted restrictions due to the volume on J121. They failed to realize that ALL that volume was coming from the same area. We are more than willing to help out but we need to have restrictions put out in a timely manner and not put a heavy burden all on one area. I also talked with a TMC after the event and they told me that there are some in trails that are often put out in the morning that had not been put out earlier. If ZJX had been aware of the weather forming near the Arrival Routes they could/should have put out restrictions before the volume picked up. When TMU became aware that the airlines were filing inland routing's they should have started working on MIT.
ZDC Controller described a very busy/complex traffic period noting last minute enroute restrictions for multiple Florida airports; adding the TMU's at all involved facilities were late in implementing flow requirements.