Narrative:

On this evening; the staffing of the area in combination with the weather created an unsafe situation. After working a busy and complex radar associate position; I was asked to relieve another sector radar controller who needed to go home. The sector was split and the traffic was complex for the next hour. There were many deviations and overflow reroutes. I was never offered an assist side as the staffing would not allow it. After working this busy sector for a while; I was then asked to combine it with another sector in order to let another controller go home. I then worked the combined sector for a while which still had numerous complex traffic situations and deviations. I was again never offered an assist position as one was not available. I was not able at times to provide accurate weather information to the pilots during this time frame as the complexity and business of the event would not allow it. When given a break; I had been on position for close to 2:30 hours without being offered a break or assist when it applied.if the staffing is not going to allow for controllers to be able to do their job safely and to the standards set by the faah 7110.65; then appropriate restrictions need to put out in order to better control the flow of the aircraft through areas that are short staffed and affected by weather. Our building needs to make these decisions and implement them to the users. We are for some reason always reluctant to put in restrictions for staffing when pretty much all of the surrounding facilities do it on a regular basis.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZBW Controller reported having to work combined sectors with no assist position during busy complex traffic periods due to weather deviations and lack of controller staffing.

Narrative: On this evening; the staffing of the area in combination with the weather created an unsafe situation. After working a busy and complex Radar Associate position; I was asked to relieve another sector Radar Controller who needed to go home. The sector was split and the traffic was complex for the next hour. There were many deviations and overflow reroutes. I was never offered an Assist Side as the staffing would not allow it. After working this busy sector for a while; I was then asked to combine it with another sector in order to let another controller go home. I then worked the combined sector for a while which still had numerous complex traffic situations and deviations. I was again never offered an Assist position as one was not available. I was not able at times to provide accurate weather information to the pilots during this time frame as the complexity and business of the event would not allow it. When given a break; I had been on position for close to 2:30 hours without being offered a break or Assist when it applied.If the staffing is not going to allow for controllers to be able to do their job safely and to the standards set by the FAAH 7110.65; then appropriate restrictions need to put out in order to better control the flow of the aircraft through areas that are short staffed and affected by weather. Our building needs to make these decisions and implement them to the users. We are for some reason always reluctant to put in restrictions for staffing when pretty much all of the surrounding facilities do it on a regular basis.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.