as i had yesterday pointed out there is a shortage of controllers in India Sub-division, i was flying today in India from Delhi (VIDP) to Mumbai (VABB) and there was absolutely no controller online. i flew on the Unicom frequency and the flight was literally boring. seemed like i was talking to myself.
attaching a screenshot from SimAware where it is clearly seen that no controller was online in India or for the matter most of the western region of the Asia-Pacific region
for those seeing this thread and wondering what i was talking about, here is the link to my yesterday’s thread
there is another issue which i am facing with this. i joined the discord server of the Indian sub-division but for being a controller, i my VATSIM id should be linked to the very division.
my Vatsim ID is currently registered under some other Division under the same region as i frequently fly in that division as there are controllers occasionally active there.
yesterday as i was trying to switch my division, the Region webpage was having an issue which has made me stuck in the same division. attaching a screenshot of this. if someone else is facing this as well, please let me know so that i am at least sure that i am not the only one having this issue.
From your screenshot it can be observed that the time was 1720 UTC (aka ~11PM IST) when you were flying. I don’t understand why you would expect ATC in India during late hours of the night when most of the people would be asleep.
Just because there was no ATC when you were flying doesn’t mean that the subdivision is not active. Last month, we logged more than 500 hours controlling on the network. We are by far the most active vACC in the West Asia division.
VABB has been getting staffed up a lot recently due to the increase in traffic from the 777 release. There’s also a bot in the India vACC Discord which sends out a message when ATC is online. Have you tried flying during a time when ATC would be online?
Also, just FYI in VATSIM we use ICAO designators in the call sign. 6E is an IATA code. The appropriate call sign to be used is IGO9.
so by this logic, i could have expected ATC coverage in India at or around 12 noon.
please find the screenshot attached of 0628Z or ~12 noon IST
no ATC coverage at noon as well. quiet understandable that there will be hardly to none ATC at night but what about morning or noon?
and just FYI i wasn’t flying indigo for putting up my callsign IGO9
you can generally expect staffing to be highest during local evening hours (primarily 2000-2200LT), on weekends/holidays you may also start seeing it beginning in the afternoon.
staffing outside of these times is usually far and few between
You’re missing the point. This network is run by volunteers who are doing this in their free time. Expecting controllers to be there when you fly is an unrealistic expectation. If you want to fly during a time when ATC is guaranteed in the region then you can look out for vACC events on my.vatsim.net/events. There was an event recently (Hajj Ops) from VIDP - OEJN with full ATC coverage.
Also I just noticed the date in your first screenshot (June 25) and I checked the logs to see if there were controllers online. In fact, just 3 minutes after you took this screenshot, there was GND & TWR online at VOBL and an hour later it also had APP.
FYI i wasn’t flying indigo for putting up my callsign IGO9
You’re flying an A320 on a domestic route with the IATA code of IndiGo, which new pilots get confused often. Unless you’re implying that 6E9 is a valid registration
