A New COVID Problem: US ATC Centers Are Closing For Cleaning

[KB4TEZ]

Enlightening read (thank you Simpleflying)

COVID-19 has had a massive impact on commercial aviation. Over the last few weeks, a new problem has started to develop. As the virus spreads and impacts those in aviation, air traffic control centers in the US are closing for facility cleaning, creating a bit of an operational issue for airlines and airports.Jacksonville closed on Monday
On Monday, January 4th, cleaning was undertaken at Jacksonville’s air traffic control facility. The closure impacted the number of flights that could be routed through the geographic area the control center covers.

Other air traffic control center closures
Before the start of 2021, the Fort Worth Air Route Traffic Control Center shut down for COVID-19 related sanitization. Early on in the crisis, three FAA ATC towers were closed in March. This included the busy John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York. The other two were at Chicago-Midway (MDW) and Las Vegas McCarran International Airport (LAS). By the end of March, a total of 11 facilities were affected.
The bigger nightmare scenario is if multiple control centers and air traffic control towers have to be shut down for cleaning at the same time. This would impact flights across the country and be an operational nightmare for airlines. There is not much that can be done if this is the case, as the FAA would not have much of an advanced notice between when cleaning would need to occur after an employee tested positive for the virus.

You can read the full detail on the link below.
https://simpleflying.com/atc-centers-closing-covid/

[tyketto]

Enlightening read (thank you Simpleflying)

COVID-19 has had a massive impact on commercial aviation. Over the last few weeks, a new problem has started to develop. As the virus spreads and impacts those in aviation, air traffic control centers in the US are closing for facility cleaning, creating a bit of an operational issue for airlines and airports.Jacksonville closed on Monday
On Monday, January 4th, cleaning was undertaken at Jacksonville’s air traffic control facility. The closure impacted the number of flights that could be routed through the geographic area the control center covers.

Other air traffic control center closures
Before the start of 2021, the Fort Worth Air Route Traffic Control Center shut down for COVID-19 related sanitization. Early on in the crisis, three FAA ATC towers were closed in March. This included the busy John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York. The other two were at Chicago-Midway (MDW) and Las Vegas McCarran International Airport (LAS). By the end of March, a total of 11 facilities were affected.
The bigger nightmare scenario is if multiple control centers and air traffic control towers have to be shut down for cleaning at the same time. This would impact flights across the country and be an operational nightmare for airlines. There is not much that can be done if this is the case, as the FAA would not have much of an advanced notice between when cleaning would need to occur after an employee tested positive for the virus.

You can read the full detail on the link below.
https://simpleflying.com/atc-centers-closing-covid/

When it comes to ARTCCs, they generally have something set up in the LOAs between sectors, as well as between the ARTCC and the TRACONs within that sector. When ZLA had to evacuate due to wildfires getting close to the facility in Palmdale, the LOA between ZLA and ZOA, ZLA and ZAB, and ZLA and ZLC allowed ZOA, ZLC, and ZAB to extend the range of their sector across the boundary to be able to handle aircraft until they could handed off to SCT or SBA.

Similar happened when fires got clost to SCT and they had to evacuate, where ZLA handled all departures that SCT would normally handle. LAS was the outlier in this as since the Tower was the only place that closed, L30 was still up and running, so they just treated the field as untowered.

In ZJX's case, ZMA, ZTL, and ZDC should all have LOAs in place to extend their airspace to cover what ZJX would normally control.

BL.