Favouritsm in Heathrow

[rdr]

I've been rather amused lately by the open queue jumping afforded to BA, BMI and Aer Lingus by the Heathrow controllers. Foreign carriers are typically stacked up in a line on N2 whilst the locals, which include long haul flts, are waved past for departure. The delay appears to be around 15-20 minutes and tapers off when there is one local carrier left, who is asked to hold for the foreign line to get going. This is possibly to deflect the obvious.
I'm curious to know if others have had a similiar experiance.:confused::confused:

[doubleu-anker]

Happens everywhere does it not?

Can you imagine BA jumping the queue at Paris in front of AF?

[punkalouver]

If true then London ATC is UNPROFESSIONAL.

[kwaiyai]

One could also argue that SVB ATC seem too allow Thai Air Asia favouritism, Or so it appears from time to time,

[getsetgo]

rdr

EGLL NOTAMS indicate that its a very busy airport.
airlines cleared before your departure are nearby based,close to LHR so may got clearance before you because of air traffic/FL not issue.
Try to spend time at ATC like Ahmdabad,or Nagpur which are not so busy with Terminal traffic but definetly enroute traffic crisscrossing from west to east and east to west. you may hear EGLL asking VAAH if route is ok to give rdr FL and clearance.

Air traffic controllers donot have time to think coffee even break these days.
from the cockpit it looks diffrent.....try to see it from the control tower ,how the world looks and enlighten us.

And in any case ATC is Air Traffic Controllers .

[Pontius]

Rdr,

As a Heathrow-based longhaul pilot with BA I can assure you there is no preferential treatment given to the British companies. I have always found LHR ATC to be very, very fair in the way they deal with the queues, unlike plenty of other countries around Europe. What may seem to be someone overtaking is probably as a result of an earlier take-off slot time. That aircraft will have been moved around by ATC to enable them to make the slot, whereas lots of the aircraft waiting to take-off won't have a slot at all. It is rare for longhaul departures from LHR (compared to shorthaul) to have take-off slots, so it is not at all unusual to see various Airbuses etc nipping down the outside lane, or taking intersection take-offs while the longhaul aircraft wait their turn. Having flown a lot of shorthaul around Europe, the skies are so full that slots are the norm and having such professionals in ATC at LHR very often meant the difference between going or, in some cases, having flights cancelled completely.

SIN's ATC are always very fair and don't seem to favour local carriers but I would point out that the number of aircraft movements doesn't even begin to compare with LHR and, because of the relatively aircraft-free skies, compared to Europe, there are far fewer restrictions on when aircraft have to be airborne (really it's only Bobcat times that seem to occassionally enter the equation).

In summary, I have operated to plenty of airports around the world and know exactly what you're talking about with ATC favouring certain airlines (just try Madrid!) but, whereas I really wish it were true, can categorically say LHR are totally unbiased......unless someone's being a complete arse, in which case they get what they deserve anywhere around the globe.

Edited to add: sorry, having re-read my post it sounds like I'm teaching you to suck eggs with the slot time lecture. Please don't take this the wrong way as it was only written in this way as I don't know what your experience level is flying around Europe

[LarryDCableGuy]

I have to agree with poster number 2. It happens everywhere. Is this your first trip or something?

[FanOn]

Well put Pontius. I’ve always found the Brit controllers pretty upright (as are a large number of the other European ATS providers).

One of the things I notice at airfields where queue jumping is more prevalent is the tendency of the local pilots to ask for priority – often slipping across into the local language – even if it isn’t one of the ICAO languages.

I suppose this could be one of the reasons it doesn’t happen in the UK – pilots for local carriers can only speak English (ICAO level 4 or better of course).

[Capt Chambo]

In the dozen or so years I operated out of LHR (for one of the companies you mentioned rdr), I was never shown any favouritsm by the LHR controllers, only extreme professionalism.
What you may be seeing is the ATCOs maximising the use of the runaway by getting one away going south, one north on east, one westbound etc. and there departures would not have affected your take-off time.

[throw a dyce]

I am a UK Nats controller (Not Heathrow) and also have worked in Hong Kong.I have never seen favourtism to any carrier,and I know at Heathrow the priority is runway utilisation.It's interesting that the BA,BMI and Aer Lingus are probably all going north or west.Far East carriers go the other way,so the departure controller is juggling slots,SID splits,departure intervals,and vortex to maximise the movement rate.They also have to consider go-arounds from the other runway.
I certainly gave no priority to CPA over any other carrier in HK.I was trying to maximise movements with a steam age ATC system.I never saw any aircraft take an intersection departure although the runway was as long as Heathrow.

[FanOn]

I never saw any aircraft take an intersection departure although the runway was as long as Heathrow.

I have certainly seen the intersections used at LHR, and even had one offered to me without request (in a heavy), for transparent reasons of flow management.

I have also heard the daft request for some form of priority “because we are running late”. These are often the guys who make the same requests in their (not-necessarily-ICAO) mother tongue when closer to home.

I saw a very cheeky one at BRU some years back. Tower accidentally gave the Air France at 4 in the sequence a “behind the just landing endanger Sabena Jumbalina, line up and wait behind” clearance. We all thought he was stuck so would inform ATC of the error.

Oh no, not my French friend. We can jus squeeze through zes smal gap, and Voilà !, there it is, we are on ze runway at the intersection and now we are ze number one.

He was not asking for, or being given priority, but just taking the half chance. Mike O’L would surely approve.

[throw a dyce]

Fan on,
I never saw intersection departures in HK.This was for traffic in the medium category.It was offered but a long silence was all you got back.It could have helped in the overall flow,but half the time they couldn't understand that you were trying to help.Fine just sit there and wait.At least BA,BMI at Heathrow, know that flexibility can speed things up.:ok:

[BusyB]

On 777 in HKG took intersection departures a few times to help ATC and reduce delays:ok:

[rdr]

This thread was'nt started on a spur, but, on observations, after a 9 month period of constant operations into Heathrow.

Thanks for the feedback for the discussion. After 30 yrs of working into London, a couple of things are clear to me. Firstly, the doubling if not trebling of flights into Heathrow, as well as the consistant class of the worlds best controllers.:D

However, it happened again yesterday.
A 20 minute hold at LOKKI and the holding point ,whilst a wave off for BA flts from T4 via SB1. All of them appearing for departure well after the queue formed. Had to follow one all the way to the far east and burnt 1200 kgs extra fuel. Again, a N3 intersection departure given to a US a/c, cutting off about 12 others in the process. (a good possibilty here were his oceanic requirements, hopefully):ugh:

Yes, i suppose it takes place in most places, and, Heathrow is no exception. Would be good to know though if this is the handiwork of a few rogue controllers , or, policy by design.

I certainly am convinced now that it unfortunately exists, and would like to warn others to be wary.:ok::ok:

[jonathon68]

I totally disagree. My experience with LHR over the past 21 years has been that they set the standard for the rest of the world to follow with regard to treating all customers equally.

I have spent the last 13 years with an asian carrier who flies in/out of LHR 4 times a day. Previous EU airline even more frequently.

My experiences with SIN (in the old days) and KUL (still to this day) could not be more different. Typical to call up "ready in 5 minutes", only to be informed that we are xx minutes behind national airline xxx, who have yet to call even ready.

Incidentally intersection departures do happen, and are indeed planned for in HKG. The new intersections and huge increases in traffic suggest more of the same in the future.

ATC professionalism can be measured on so many different standards, and national bias is just one.

CDG gave me a very nice downwind-easy return in the mid 1990's for a engine failure, with attendant emergency services etc. Definitely a 9.5 for their service when I was needing it. However, I have probably wasted days of my life calling in english on CDG Delivery only to be ignored, while French speakers always seemed to get a prompt response.

My benchmark for ATC professionalism remains an early Heathrow 1990's incident, where we were in the sequence on approach to LHR 27L. A south american airliner was following us. The controller questioned as to whether they had "captured the glideslope". A thick south american accent replied that they had "negative G/S". The immediate response was "roger, this will be an SRA approach, you are above the glideslope" etc, etc. Basically the approach controller picked up an SRA approach in the middle of a stream of radar vectored ILS traffic. He kept the foreign airliner on his frequency, even cleared him to land, while managing the rest of his task load as if it were situation normal. This was a "class act".

There are so many other places in the world where ATC are deficient, either through nationalism, or poor english, or lack of experience, or lack of equipment or simply being overloaded and exhausted. India is almost always challanging, as is Indonesia and sometimes the Philippines.

Japan can always be counted upon to let you down when anything unusual happens, such as a windshear go-around on approach. They will happily depart traffic and ignore your go-around. Repeated calls to ATC will get no response, and you are totally on your own.

Worst of all in my opinion is the USA, especially LAX and JFK. The FAA should "out-source" their approach control to the boys from Bombay and Delhi, it would definitely be an improvement!

[point8six]

Having flown into and out of Heathrow for over 35 years, some of which were for a foreign-based carrier, I can confirm that the controllers do not favour any British airline over non-British ones. Their only concerns are for efficient flow control and safety on and around the airports. You do not have the "big picture" regarding departure restrictions and routeings after take-off. If you feel aggrieved at a delay that you do not understand, then why not raise the question through your company to UK-ATC?:ok:

[ACMS]

Maybe you should visit SIN and see what the "master race" do.

Funny how SQ get things others can't...........................

[FanOn]

I would respectfully suggest next time you are rostered for a LHR trip you take time and go and visit the control tower there and put your concerns directly to the ATC controllers!

Go to the tower! I have enough difficulty going to the tarmac to do an external pre-flight! Or getting immigrations to let me into the country on a non electronic, non biometric, non European, non single language passport – let alone trying to gain access to a really, really restricted important nationally sensitive area, that pilots should definitely not be allowed into. Especially as it might result in a return to the good old days of, esprit de corp, mutual understanding and respect, and modern day CRM (TRM for ATC, I believe).

That said – they (LHR) are good, transparent, and working toward the same goal as most aviation professionals – safe and efficient operations. Few good controllers are not. I love Copenhagen on a busy, miserable night. I have even marvelled at the professionalism (and anglais) of the controller going into Nice one morning. Singapore has been constantly good for 20 odd years.

Favouritism goes out as professionalism, and accountability comes in.

For queue jumping though – look elsewhere – not Heathrow, not Hong Kong, not Toronto. Look at places that have weak safety systems.



PS
S**t – that was more serious than I thought it would be.

[rdr]

One of the best sources of information in a foreign country is the cabbie, or the bus driver on a slip. They may not know too much about ATC in Heathrow, but he was spot on about T5. I was told that T5 had just as much chance to be ready on schedule last week, as hell would freezing over.
Amazing that I knew it, but Her Majesty did not.

With all the BA cancellations, we might burn less fuel, for a while yet.

[FanOn]

Hi rdr,

I had also heard there would be a few hiccups with t5, but hey, a project that size, and you would have a sound bet. It was not going to run smoothly on the first day unless they had fully trained passengers with no expectations and total control over the press, .

The rumours I heard actually focused on the baggage system ie. They were quite specific.

The reasoning was that the new baggage handling system had been developed by an international company specialising in material handling systems based in the Netherlands and the world’s second biggest provider of baggage handling systems. But none-the-less based in a different language zone. The system was also described as “being like its own railway network”.

My guess – Someone was not up to ICAO level 4 English, and then British Rail got involved.

The rest is history, but predictable history.