Fellow Aviators,
It has been a long standing tradition at VATUSA to facilitate Friday Night OPS Events on Friday Nights. Recently we have seen a tremendous increase in traffic during these events which has overloaded facilities causing lengthy ground delays and holds in the air. Now with people at home practicing self-isolation during the COVID-19 Pandemic the traffic levels have increased even more. With that in mind the VATUSA Division has decided to change the format of Friday Night OPS to better accommodate the volume of traffic. We will be doing a couple of different things. We will host events in two formats.
1.) Open Mic Night - We will not feature any airport in particular but the ARTCC's will staff up to their ability. This offers a unique opportunity for pilots to see who is online and plan a flight. There should be multiple facilities staffed which should create more options for the pilots to select their flight.
2.) Regional Nights - Where 3 ARTCC's and more fields are staffed. Once again creating additional opportunities for pilots.
We realize these changes are sudden and we have replaced some already scheduled events with these changes. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding. Our hopes for the future are to improve the Friday Night OPS events and try to cut back on the Ground Delays and Holds in the Air to the best of our ability. We are asking pilots to check to see how much traffic is at a given facility before logging on and select a departure and destination that is not over-saturated with traffic. If we can work together (Controllers and Pilots) hopefully we can make the Friday Night OPS Events more enjoyable for all.
May 1, 2020 - Open Mic Night FNO
May 8, 2020 - OPen Mic Night FNO
May 15, 2020 Southern Region FNO
May 22, 2020 Northeast Crossings III FNO
May 29, 2020 Open Mic Night
