Commercial Fixed Wing
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 18.0
Time Pressure; Workload; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic
Airspace Structure; Human Factors; Staffing; Company Policy
While working combined sectors the weather closed down the east coast. I started receiving traffic from the east coast from overland while also receiving traffic going south already established on the AR routes. I told my supervisor of the coming traffic problems. I had a lot of weather already in my airspace along with warning areas active all around. I worked through the mess for a while before I had to ask for the sector to be split. The traffic continued to build over the next 2 hours. It was very clear that no plan was in place or being worked on. I continued to work extreme traffic through weather for the next 2 hours and 15 minutes. I had to ask for a tracker. We were so busy they had one standing over my shoulder and the sector next to me because we didn't have enough staffing to give both of us a tracker. I finally had to beg for a dedicated tracker for safety. I had so many planes I couldn't see them all. It was one of the worst safety issues I have been involved with while being here. The red number for sector 52 is 23 and I was working well over 30 for a number of blocks in weather. 23 is the max under ideal conditions. Over 30 with weather over at least an hour and a half time frame is just unacceptable. In an agency that claims to be worried about safety it was very clear it didn't matter this time frame. The sector south of my airspace also experienced the same amount of volume and complexity. I spent over 2 hours on position. We never have a plan in place when these issues come up. It always seems to be a total surprise when it happens. We have been told by every manager we are not allowed to slow traffic down due to staffing. You even say the 'staffing' word and they change it to weather or something else. We were not; nor have been; properly staffed to handle this types of weather events. I understand things take a little bit to filter down through the pipeline but 1 hour and 30 minutes of solid red complex red traffic with weather is unacceptable.
ZJX Center Controller reported they worked combined sectors of traffic deviating for weather consistently exceeding the designated limits for the sectors with not enough staff to assist them.