B737-700
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 12
Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Airport; Human Factors
Provo Approach; a non-radar approach control located in the Turks and Caicos and completely surrounded by Miami Center's (ZMA) airspace.The Approach Control became overwhelmed when a cluster of aircraft arrived at the inbound fixes fed by Miami Center in a short period of time; landing in MBPV. When we noticed the Approach Control started holding; 10 aircraft arrived at the fixes. For an airport with an arrival rate of 7 aircraft per hour and a non-radar approach control; this volume of traffic is unmanageable. The airport also goes into holding to allow aircraft to depart. MBPV airport in addition to not having a taxiway; has limited ramp space to accommodate aircraft. To alleviate the situation the airport goes into holding to allow aircraft to depart and open ramp space.Provo Approach owns from surface to FL060. Per LOA (Letter of Agreement) aircraft are fed above the Approach Control at FL070 non-radar. When controllers do not have 10 minutes at the fix; they feed the next aircraft at the next available altitude FL080 and so on. On this day the holding pattern was up to FL190. All those aircraft were being held by Provo Approach in ZMA's airspace. Due to frequency limitation Controller have to issue a crossing restriction and terminate radar service because if they wait too long the ZMA Controller will lose communication with the aircraft.A 'Provo Program' officially called FCAPV1 was run from [3 hours]. The program was insufficient to maintain the rate at 7 aircraft per hour during the time it ran. The program then ended early before it capture the tail end of the traffic. FCAPV1 (when implemented) routinely proves to be insufficient in controlling the airport arrival rate and causing ZMA's Ocean Area to scramble to keep the airport from becoming overwhelmed.FOR THE TURKS AND CAICOS-Turks and Caicos Aviation Authority needs to build a taxiway. MBPV airport needs a taxiway so aircraft can taxi off the active runway and not backtrack. A taxiway will allow aircraft to vacate the runway and also for departure traffic to hold at the runway edge. Currently aircraft taxi on the runway to the departure end and prevent aircraft from landing.-Turks and Caicos Aviation Authority needs a radar or receive a radar feed from GTK radar.TO FIX RIGHT NOW-An effective FCAPV1 to be implemented [three days per week] and in place long enough to slow the flow of traffic to a workable rate for Provo Approach. And for FCAPV1 to effectively keep the arrival rate at 7; which is not doing at this time.TO FIX IN THE NEAR FUTURE-A frequency site at MBPV airport for Miami Center. The site has been in the works for year! The area has been told that it is funded and approved and yet in the 8 years in the area I am still to see progress on this.-Published holding fixes at the boundary so ZMA can hold the traffic. This will only work if we have a frequency to communicate with these aircraft.
ZMA Center Front Line Manager reported problems associated with the arrival rate and airport structure at the MBPV airport.