inbound routings to Luton

[robinlance]

Is there a particular reason that inbounds to Luton from the South East ie Paris are taken north of Stansted via Barkway. BPK seems to have fallen from use. Additional distance and time seem a waste.

[747FOCAL]

Noise man, noise! :ok:

[vintage ATCO]

Roger Dodge. . .

Are we missing the plot here? :confused: :rolleyes:


VA

[WMD]

robinlance,

Are you asking why you don't get a left base for RWY 26 ? If so, the reason is that there's often, not always, too much traffic around to get you down. Same goes for a right base on 08 - if we can we'll do it but it depends on the traffic!

WMD

[Slippers]

Robinlance,

To continue on from what WMD had to say, I think I remember from the last set of movement figures that if you combined the Luton and Stansted numbers, you'd end up with the second busiest "airport" in the country. Hence Essex Radar are very busy and hence things have to be kept a lot more standard.

Also for a base leg we'd be aiming for about 4000ft at BPK unfortunately that's the SID level for all Luton's east and SE bound departures off of RW 26. Before we can get you to 4000 at the park we have to get you through anything inbound to Heathrow coming off LAM heading 270 (usually at Flight Levels 70 and 80) and anything departing Heathrow on a BPK SID which has been held down due holding traffic at BNN.

Oh and there are also northbound London City departures to think about, whose SID Level is 3000ft at BPK.

You also have to be fitted in with the sequence of any other Luton inbounds which might be around at the same time.

Not easy.

Having said all that though, if it's possible, we generally give it a go.

S.

[Roger Dodge]

VA

Sorry about that, must have been having a blonde moment :O

I have deleted said post to save further confusion/embarassment:confused: :O

[Save my bacon]

robinlance

as has been mentioned, Essex Radar is getting busier and busier. It would be lovely for Essex controllers if the Luton inbounds were taken out of the sequence and vectored downwind for Luton by the TMA. This obviously depends on traffic constraints as mentioned above.

However, presuming traffic does not allow for a 'dirty dive' at BPK the Luton traffic will unfortunately have to be sequenced along with the Stansted inbounds via BKY. This can sometimes even cause Luton traffic to hold, where there is no Luton delay, because the stacks are full of Stansted inbounds and the Luton traffic can't get down through them.

Maybe Essex radar could do with a bit more airspace?!? or Luton shoulds have their own holding stack??

[Topofthestack]

What does disappoint me about many of the posts I'm reading is that pilots who regularly use airspace into their home bases don't seem to have a clue about what's going on down in the ATC department. Perhaps a visit to LTCC wouldn't go amiss!

Yep. sorry old bean but it's getting hellishly busy around BPK (not a place I'd buy a house!). Indications are that traffic this month is up about 10% in TC. Combine that with a lot of easterlies (which makes it more difficult on all TC sectors in the BPK area), an increase in SS traffic and more of you guys will be seeing more of BKY and points north on the way into GW! My advice is if the frequency (118.82) is busy, don't even try and ask!

There were plans for major alterations in the LOREL airspace involving other, separate, stacks for GW but DfT get all twitchy about changing SID's and stacks etc because of the noise lobby. Anything to do with this (don't mind the safety aspects of what's already going on) and you have years of consultation and indecision. Combine this with the TC Ops department being forced to deal with taking on airspace into TC to help out the Swanwick fiasco, developments of LC to appease their management so they can justify spending huge sums on runway expansion, the move of TC to Swanwick and you get a piece of airspace that needs urgently sorting out and no resources to do it with. I'd just load a little more gas in future because those short cuts are disappearing rather rapidly!;)