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Old 16th Jun 2018, 09:57
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ATCO1962
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
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It get's even more complicated in the Middle East, where most of these 380s operate. Departures from DXB, AUH and DOH are immediately affected, heading eastbound, by long haul traffic overflying these units and heading into VABB airspace. That means that there are few, decent levels available for these departures during busy spells because of oceanic separation standards applied in VABB and the fact that the overflyers often have priority for the levels unless serious economic penalties are incurred (how do you sort that out in chaotic traffic?).

In the Gulf, where most of these behemoths operate, we've found that more and more of our R/T time is spent answering queries about aircraft types flying above smaller aircraft. There are significantly more off sets given to such aircraft to avoid wake turbulence and often, we'll see aircraft inbound from oceanic airspace taking an unapproved offset to ensure they stay away from unwanted bumps from planes they can see on TCAS and they're unaware of aircraft type. It seems that newer types can use mode S to improve situational awareness, which may help in sorting some of these issues out because we can't always give advisories to affected aircraft due to the heavy volumes of traffic we get here. We still routinely have 25-30 aircraft on a sector frequency which only gives us enough time to do the basic stuff. Good luck.
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