[Every Tuesday, 18-20z] Zurich Night

[Ramon Balimann]

Generally when the Runway Change is announced 30 minutes prior it should not be a problem to make it smooth and without a big loos of capacity. On this Tuesday the Runway Change was not announced early enough (only like 10-15min) which caused to this little chaos around 19z. We already talked with the involved controllers to make it better next time. As the others already stated, if plannend and done efficiently it's not a big deal.

[Ramon Balimann]

After some years with the same banner Zurich Night will be advertised with a new one! Look at the initial Post for this one. The reason for that you can find here.

Thanks to Stephan Fässler for his work!

[Andre Bohni]

Out of curiosity i checked the Numbers for today Evening, we had:
67 Departures between 1809 and 2230
and 102 Arrivals between 1830 and 2230

So thanks to all Pilots and Fellow Controllers, and Merry Christmas to all of you.

[Thomas Bachmann]

2020-12-23.png

Hier noch ein Bild von meinem Holding über GIPOL. Hat Spass gemacht auch wenn ich lange warten musste im Holding. Aber wurde schon von Swiss Radar vorgewarnt um auf clean speed zu gehen... Im Kopf war auch noch ein Divert nach Basel. Aber wollte wieder mal Holdings fliegen

[Ramon Balimann]

Dear Pilots

As you maybe already noticed, there will be new event times for our Zurich Night. Starting of tomorrow, the event will start at 19:00z and will end at 21:00z. There are different reasons for this change, mostly to relieve our controllers a little bit since we often have some problems to find enough controllers. Furthermore the overtime often leads to 4 hours shift on a weekday. With this changes we hope that we can give you every Tuesday an appropriate staffing, high quality ATC and an enjoyable experience for you and our controller.

Thanks for your understanding and see you tomorrow!

[Hans Peter Baumgartner]

Die Swiss ATC's sind eh meistens Spitzenklasse, aber heute abend hat das DREAM TEAM eine EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE geboten. Beste Werbung für VACC Switzerland. Gratuliere! (Auch wenn mich André auf eine "Tour de Schwarzwald" schicken musste). Hab nach dem Shutdown noch ein bisschen zugehört: Matt ist ein absolut begnadeter Flohzirkusdirektor (auch APRON genannt) :-). Schönen Abend allen.
LG HP (FDX49T)

[Ramon Balimann]

We are in Summer Break with Zurich Night, see you again on 16th of August!

[Ramon Balimann]

Dear Pilots and Controller

The Zurich Night from 30th August will not take place due to the lack of controller. It was not an easy decision to cancel this event but since we always want to provide you a good service we had to do this. We hope to see you again next week!

[Hisham Omar]

To our pilots and controllers;

Due to poor staffing at this time, we have decided to officially cancel the Zurich Night event on the 27th of September 2022 as an appropriate staffing to deal with the inherent traffic amount is unlikely to be found in proper time. We always aim to provide the best possible experience to our members on both sides of the scope and the decision to cancel was made in the interest of all involved. We hope to see you again next week in surely better circumstances!

[Ramon Balimann]

Dear Pilots and Controllers

Thank you for visiting us yesterday, around 145 Movements, wow! We will take a break for the holiday season and let our controller some time to recharge the batteries. We will be back on 10th of January 2023 for the next Zurich Night.

We wish you and your family a Merry Christmas, calm holidays and a happy new year!

Administration Department vACC Switzerland

[Hisham Omar]

Dear members,


Hoping you are all well, I would like to remind that, as announced in the "Eventplannung" thread and communicated in our February newsletter, the "Zurich Night" on the 28th of March has been cancelled in order to ensure a sustainable staffing of our "Happy Birthday vACC Switzerland" event on the following day. This decision was made in the best interest of our members on both sides of the scope and in hopes of providing the best possible opportunities for our Birthday celebration on the 1st of March. Therefore, the next "Zurich Night" will be held on the 7th of March 2023 as planned.

We thank you in advance for your understanding.


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

[Hisham Omar]

To our pilots and controllers,


Good evening all. Unfortunately, owing to poor staffing and pursuant to our Event Staffing Policy, we have decided to cancel our Zurich Night on the 21st of March (tomorrow) due to a lack of controllers at the CTR level. We appreciate the unfortunate nature of this news but are confident in the prudence and quality emphasis our policy helps guarantee.

Nevertheless, we thank you all in advance for your understanding and are looking forward to the exciting events we have coming up next week!


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

[Hisham Omar]

To our pilots and controllers,


A lovely evening to all. Unfortunately, owing to poor staffing at the CTR level, we have made the decision to cancel our Zurich Night on the 25th of April (tomorrow) as pursuant to our "Event Staffing Policy". We appreciate the unfortunate nature of this situation but are confident in our emphasis on early-planning and forward notice.

This being said, we are looking forward to next week's instalment which seems already well-planned and adequately booked, we hope to see you all soon!


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

[Hisham Omar]

To our pilots and controllers,



Good evening all. Unfortunately, owing to poor staffing at the CTR level and pursuant to our "Event Staffing Policy", we have decided to cancel our Zurich Night on the 16th of May (tomorrow). We appreciate the less-than-ideal nature of this news but we remain confident in the prudence and advance planning our policy aims to guarantee.

Nevertheless, we thank you all in advance for your understanding and are looking forward to the exciting events we have coming up in the coming weeks.


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

[Hisham Omar]

To our pilots and controllers,


A good evening to all. Unfortunately, owing to poor staffing at the CTR level, we have made the difficult decision to cancel our Zurich Night on the 30th of May (tomorrow) as pursuant to our "Event Staffing Policy". We appreciate the unfortunate nature of this situation but are confident in our emphasis on appropriate planning and adequate notice.

We have taken note of the frequent cancellations as of late and will be relaying any changes in long-term planning in due time. Enjoy your weeks.


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

[Hisham Omar]

To our pilots and controllers,


Good evening. Sadly, owing to repeatedly poor staffing lacking at both the CTR and the APP level, we have decided to, once again, cancel our Zurich Night on the 6th of June (tomorrow) in accordance with our "Event Staffing Policy". We do regret this unfortunate situation but are trying our best to work within the increasingly limiting staffing constraints as of late.

Cancellations are, of course, unpleasant for everyone but nevertheless we thank our members for their understanding. Let's hope for a better turnout very soon.


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

[Hisham Omar]

To our pilots and controllers,


It seems these messages are becoming more and more recurring, much to the understandable displeasure of of many of our members. Owing to poor staffing at the CTR level and as mandated by our "Event Staffing Policy", we have decided to cancel our Zurich Night on the 13th of June (tomorrow). Needless to say, the Administration Department will have to amend many of its plans for the rest of the year.

We thank all our active members for their hard work over the past semester and appreciate their understanding. We are sorry this season of Zurich Nights has had to end like this but hope for a swift recovery from this staffing downfall.


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

[Hisham Omar]

A lovely evening to all,


As previously announced in our "Eventplannung" threads, our signature "Zurich Night" franchise will be on an extended summer break until the second half of August, with the precise modalities and dates of its return to be confirmed in due time.

We would like to thank our active members for their support and express our appreciation to the pilots who, with their interest, keep this franchise popular and a fan favourite amongst our regular fliers. We are eager to return back to action but until then, we wish you a pleasant summer break and hope to hear you very soon on frequency!


Kindest regards,

vACC Switzerland Administration Department.

[Hisham Omar]

A lovely evening to all,


We hope that you are enjoying the summer break and are as eager as we are for the return of the "Zurich Nights".

During the past weeks, the Administration Department has been busy collecting, sorting and gathering feedback on how to improve the staffing of our franchise and help lower staffing-related constraints and cancellations as evident by the many posts above. As such, we have made 2 key direct logistical changes to the franchise to aid in our efforts and help improve the attractivity of our landmark event;

• Reduction of frequency: the "Zurich Nights" will return on the 22nd of August as planned but will boast a bi-weekly pace to help prevent ATCO saturation and improve chances of reliable staffing.
• Elimination of myVATSIM and social media posting: our key franchise will no longer be regularly posted/advertised on the myVATSIM platform nor on our social media outlets which will hopefully reduce our traffic quantities by 25-35%.

These measures have been taken as initial decisions made to help improve staffing and alleviate the current ATCO shortage us and many other European vACCs have been witnessing. A full description of these measures and our implementation of them is available on our "Zurich Night" Staffing feedback thread, where your inputs and suggestions are always welcome.

Thanking you all for your understanding, we are looking forward to a new season of enticing events!

[Hisham Omar]

A lovely day to all,


Whether it is back to school, work or both, we wish all our members a satisfying and pleasant start to the new academic year!

Over the past few editions, the Administration Department has been keen to observe the effects of the recently implemented measures announced on the appropriate staffing discussion threads. With the summer slowly fading into autumn and consequent changes observed, we felt it best to communicate some initial impressions and updates to the franchise.

Traffic has decreased by almost 30%; with strategic under-marketing, we have done our best to address the prevalent concerns of excess traffic and ATCO exhaustion with a reduction in the traffic figures. And though we have much to experiment with and adjust, you can hopefully keep expecting moderate and reasonable flows for the next editions.

As planned, the event is now weekly again; as we communicated in August, our process of reducing the event's frequency has now drawn to a close and starting from tomorrow, the event will be weekly once more. This does not mean the end of the feedback process nor that we "solved" all problems; we are still gathering ideas and inputs from our members on how best to alleviate staffing concerns, but we are hoping that with less traffic, shorter days and the coming of winter, the division-wide ATCO shortages will be somewhat alleviated.

We will be constantly monitoring and evaluating our events, the staffing present and the traffic participating. As we said prior, we have not ruled out any measures or decisions and are open to all proposals, so be sure to send your feedback to our email (administration(a)vacc.ch) or on the relevant threads and we will be happy to discuss further.

Hope to see you all there and wishing everyone a pleasant event season!