Any Unknown or Unlisted Aircraft Manufacturer
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Confusion; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Airspace Violation All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Airspace Structure; Procedure
The scenario during the day shift was extreme. During my many years of being in the air traffic control field; I have never witnessed anything close to what happened. The day started with weather building over West Florida; Gulf of Mexico; South Georgia and the East Coast of the U.S. within our airspace and Washington ARTCC. The weather system resulted in the AR (Atlantic Routes) routes closing and that traffic being routed inland over Charleston; SC. This is traditionally already a busy corridor of north and south bound traffic. As the weather built; our traffic management unit implemented numerous traffic management initiatives to help relieve the volume and pressure for the East Coast sectors. These initiatives included miles in trail spacing for Orlando; Miami and Ft. Lauderdale landing traffic among other restrictions such as miles in trail for aircraft at altitude that would be considered overflight traffic into Jacksonville ARTCC. Re-routes were issued to Atlanta ARTCC for certain airports and the traffic that transitioned through these sectors and required altitude changes. Those re-routes helped shift the traffic away from the high volume areas such as the East Coast; into areas that may have less volume and/or complexity to better serve the affected aircraft. On this day; these routes did not work. In fact; it appears that some of the routes were not issued or they were ignored based on their needs; not ours. The weather impact affected some of these reroutes and some aircraft would still deviate back into the busy sectors. I personally told these sectors where or how to route these aircraft; yet it did not get done. The non-issuance of reroutes is an ongoing issue for ZJX; this certainly added complexity to our situation. When the aircraft began to deviate from the reroutes; it seemed that they all moved toward one hole in the weather line that would allow passage. That hole was in the south area specifically in Sectors 67; 68; 58 and 76. These sectors bore the brunt of the traffic impact and weather deviations. On a typical day; this moving of aircraft is normal in that we move from the different arrivals or en route procedures for many different airports to help accommodate traffic or complexity issues. One way we mitigate the impact of the added traffic is by gaining airspace from warning areas that are in use. This; in some cases; can add 40 to 50 miles of airspace that we would normally have to avoid. From the initial call for the activation of the warning areas; I requested airspace to be released to us. I was told numerous times that the airspace was on request but we would not be able to obtain anything further. This warning area airspace is significant to us during events of weather like this because it helps build safety into operations by allowing deviations around weather cells. The impact of them being 'hot' reduces capacity of these adjacent sectors thus reducing flexibility in accommodating the needs of aircraft encountering adverse weather. This is the equivalent of closing I-95 from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach and having to route that traffic through a smaller area that is able to handle the traffic; but on a much more structured system. Any changes would cause added complexity to the situation and did. As the situation progressed; more traffic management initiatives were issued to include from Miami ARTCC to provide us 30 Miles in trail regardless of altitude; this was to slow traffic even further because ZMA used stacked altitudes to bypass the restriction of 20 Miles in trail per altitude. These stacks increased the workload of R75 because numerous coordination phone calls needed to be made so the aircraft could be moved closer to requested altitudes. Along with the external TMIs; we determined that we could not space the Orlando arrivals because of the off loaded traffic from other arrivals; the reduced sector airspace capacity and added volume in Sectors 67 and 68. We removed them from Sector67 by requiring all Orlando arrivals AOB FL 340 and ultimately pushing them to lower altitudes FL240 and tunneling them into the low sectors because we could not handle anymore traffic into Sector 58; the arrival sector. Still no airspace released from the military. When the bulk of the traffic hit; I tried to staff the situations the best I could. At one point; I had 2 trackers at R58 along with an R-Side and D-Side assigned. This lasted for approximately 15 - 20 minutes until the situation lightened. With all of the traffic management initiatives in place; finally gaining airspace by demand from me to SEALORD; I do not know how we could have improved the situation. I believe the situation changed so rapidly that we; as ZJX; had no choice to but to try and handle the workload. My options at the time were: Increase traffic management initiatives; I honestly do not know what else we could have put in place. Reduce MAP numbers to bring attention to affected sectors. The sectors were already being watched to the best of my knowledge and in some cases already in red alert status. Refuse hand-offs and close the sector. If I would have done this it would have affected the entire East coast of the US. The Operations Manager implemented a Tier 1 Ground Stop that allowed us to catch up and only work the aircraft in the sector. Seize airspace; I partially did this. I received no help in obtaining airspace through the mission's desk. They; to the best of my knowledge; had my requests in place with SEALORD but the military did not return airspace. My call to them overrode missions and airspace was released shortly there after. With the aircraft deviating toward these warning areas; I felt this was the right thing to do at the time. I do not know if the CAR40 procedures were discussed by the STMC but given the impact of the traffic volume and the proximity to the Warning Areas I tried to help our controllers by giving them more room to let aircraft deviate. I do not recall aircraft entering Warning Areas without authorization prior to the airspace being released. Recommendation; one of my main concerns is the new CAR 40 procedures. Where were these procedures when we needed them? The redesign of airspace for SEALORD; FASFACJAX; is something that I have been proposing for years. The procedures are antiquated at best if not completely unrealistic. I would recommend the following: 1. Redesign the airspace to help the FAA maintain its mission of being the safest; most efficient aerospace system in the world. There are ways; such as standard release areas; that can be used to facilitate our needs and theirs. This head-strong fight of whose mission trumps whose is ridiculous. In the even of severe weather; the mission of the FAA and the civil flying public wins; hands down. These procedures need to be discussed with all parties and procedures; even if on a trial basis; should be developed. I recommend that when activating the warning areas; the standard release area should include the 'Sprint Corridor' or a complete 'Rainbow Package' to allow for a better flow of traffic through these affected sectors. The using agencies are either U.S. Navy tenants or U.S. Air Force aircraft. Certainly with today's technology; utilizing a more efficient system would benefit everyone. The release of airspace on a real-time basis would help as well. What was ATCSCC role during this? We always hear that procedures are implemented by central flow; what was done on a national level to help this situation? If they have the 'Big Picture' I would think that they could have forecasted this long before it arrived. The voices in the building were loud and asked for help. Whether those concerns were voiced to the command center remains to be seen. The appearance from my position is that no help or support was given from outside the building until it was a major issue.
ZJX Supervisor described a very complex traffic period with heavy/complex traffic and limited airspace availability due to weather.  The reporter debated military operations/airspace vs. civil aviation needs.