Professionally Important Skills of Air Traffic Controllers

Abstract

The paper deals with the diagnosis and development of core skills of air traffic (AT) controllers based on a professiogram analysis of their work. The aim was to assess how professional skills are related to experience and to explore the opportunities of purposeful training of these skills. The study was conducted with the participation of air traffic (AT) controllers who were graduates of an ATC school aged 22–25 years and had no experience and eleven first-class operators aged 31–37 years with eight to ten years of experience. The professiogram analysis of work was carried out using a specially crafted skill tests battery followed by training (ten sessions during ten school days) for inexperienced air traffic controllers, which was tied up to regular refresher training. The study pinpointed the core skills that were improved significantly by the special training and proved the possibility of their development using a training cycle during planned teaching.