The six desks · Controllers and unions
“I want to know who decides my nights, and whether a swap I agreed with a colleague can be quietly refused.”
This page is written to be read on a phone, in a crew room, between shifts. There is no form on it and nothing to book. If you want the long version with citations, every claim below links to the page that proves it.
What she needs to decide
Sofia is not deciding whether her ANSP buys SkyRoster. Someone else does that. What she needs to decide is whether to tell her colleagues the system is fair enough to work inside, or whether it needs to be fought over in the next round of talks with management. That decision turns on three things: what she actually gets on her own phone, whether a refused swap tells her why, and whether anyone had to ask her first.
What she actually gets
The mobile app's home screen shows your coming shifts, and tapping one expands the exact working position and sector for that shift, the same detail your supervisor sees on the tactical board. You are not looking at a generic calendar with “working” written on it.
verifiedContractual leave, annual rest allowance, granted allowance, meeting and instructor allowance, overtime and Bank of Working Hours: six balances, each traceable to what earned it, on one screen. You do not have to call HR to ask how many rest days you have left.
verifiedLeave, duty, work requests and swaps are filed and tracked from the phone. On the calendar you can multi-select two or more of your own shifts and file a swap directly from the grid, no separate builder screen.
verifiedNine notification categories, each switchable independently, plus a separate on/off for email versus the app. Both the Apple App Store and Google Play list the app's own data collection as none, a declaration made to Apple and Google, not a promise made to you by us.
verifiedMore detail: the mobile app, module by module.
How a swap is actually decided
When you and a colleague agree to swap, the system runs the same set of checks it runs for everyone: are you qualified for the shift you'd receive, does it respect your minimum rest, does it stay inside your monthly overtime cap, is either shift already tied up in another pending swap, and so on. It runs this check three times: once while you're browsing who could swap with you, once the instant you submit, and once again when the approver clicks accept, because the roster can change in between.
Structural
Same roster, matching block sizes, nothing already mid-swap.
Qualification & rest
You're licensed for it, and your rest before and after it holds.
Hours & allowance
Your monthly overtime cap and Bank of Working Hours stay intact.
24 automated checks in total. The engine does not stop at the first one that fails. If a swap breaks three rules at once, you and your colleague see all three, not a single generic no.verified
Who exactly has to approve a swap in your unit, beyond the automated checks, is set per unit by your ANSP, not by us. configuredIf you don't know who that is at your unit, that is a fair question for your head of unit.
What it does not do
SkyRoster's rostering engine is a constraint solver, not a machine-learning model. Give it the same demand, the same staff and the same rules twice, and it produces the same roster twice. It does not build a hidden profile of who swaps often, who calls in sick before a night shift, or who is “difficult.” There is no behavioural score attached to your name that you cannot see.verified
The one fairness ranking the system does keep, the Vacation Score used to decide who gets priority for popular leave dates, is visible on your own dashboard. Its formula is a table your admin configured and can show you, and every change to that table is on the record.
Not a courtesy
This is the one your union rep hat should care about most. It is not a SkyRoster feature. It is a regulatory duty your ANSP has, independent of what software it buys.
“An air traffic control services provider shall consult those air traffic controllers who will be subject to the rostering system, or, as applicable, their representatives, during its development and its application, to identify and mitigate risks concerning fatigue which could be due to the rostering system itself.”Regulation (EU) 2017/373, Annex IV (Part-ATS), Article ATS.OR.320(b)
Configuring SkyRoster does not satisfy this on its own. The consultation happens at your ANSP's table, with your union in the room, before and while the rostering rules go into the system. If nobody asked you, that is a gap in how your employer applied the regulation, not something a settings screen can fix after the fact.
What it can't do for her
One page, for the noticeboard
Worth knowing before you sign off on this system
* Sofia is a fictional persona used to represent controllers and union representatives generally. She is not a real SkyRoster customer or employee.
Who else will ask, and what they will want
