Key jobs: Watchful eye on the skies

Mike Allan at work. Photo / Paul Estcourt

With 360-degree views around Auckland, Mike Allan reckons his job of eight years has him working in one of the best offices in the region.

The air traffic controller at Auckland Airport can see the SkyTower and Mt Eden, Rangitoto and the dramatic scenery of the Manukau Harbour heads.

The control tower sits 31m above the airport, in between the domestic and international terminals, with 2km of runway extending either side.

Mr Allan, 43, is one of 25 staff who work around the clock to bring in and send off about 450 flights each day.

Screens showing a sketch-like map of the Auckland region are used to show every aircraft nearby. Zooming out reveals every aircraft over the entire country and out over the sea.

Wind and rain, or delayed planes, mean the shifts can be unpredictable, everything changing at a moment's notice.

"It's almost like a chess game; we move them around ... Every day's completely different."

Three air traffic controllers work at any one time and in one shift they swap seats to do three jobs. One looks after planes landing, taking off and flying around, the other looks after ground control and anything around the airport, and the third handles route clearances and information needed for the flight, including weather.

They work 7-hour shifts, four days on and two days off.

"Often our weekend is in the middle of the week," Mr Allan says. "I kind of struggle to work 9 to 5 [but] because we don't work in peak hours, it's easy to get to work.

"I like the shift work side of it and the variety. Every day's different - different challenges, different weather. It's a pretty good office to work in."

It also means he can spend time with his two daughters and assist with their school activities during the day.

Mr Allan trained for the job - something he became interested in while in the air force - during six months at the Airways NZ training college in Christchurch, then worked in the Wellington Airport control tower for five years.

He says skills required for the job include good judgment, quick decision-making and confidence.

"It pays not to get too stressed when things go wrong, you want to stay reasonably calm."

Visual, spatial skills are also crucial. He needs to judge what's coming in to land, how much space it needs and what other planes can be on the airport when it does.

And, to make it more complicated, when the controllers are looking at their screens, planes arrive to their left, but show up on the screens on the right, and vice versa.

Radar systems - detected in a giant "golf ball" structure on top of the Waitakeres - automatically pick up aircraft from 200 nautical miles offshore which puts them in the Airways NZ system. This communicates with them so the controllers can guide them in to land.

What happens if they zone out and forget what they're doing?

Mr Allan laughs: "That doesn't happen."

What's the most interesting thing he has seen on the job?

"One of the airport [employees] called me up and said, 'You're not going to believe this, but there's a seal on the edge of the runway'. It must have got under the fence down the end," he said, nodding towards Manukau Harbour.

"He plonked himself on the runway and we had to close it for about 20 minutes."

Colleagues also tell of some lost Japanese tourists who drove on to the runway about 10 years ago.

As a plane comes in to land, smoke shoots out from its wheels.

Asked whether they have a laugh at some of the not-so-smooth landings, Mr Allan grins, shakes his head and says: "Nooo ... we don't have score cards."