From what I have been told, APP owns the bottom 2 levels of the stack (say 10000' and 11000'). Area drops them to 12000', then hands them off. As 12000' is vacated, next one to 12000' and handed off. This way APP can keep them in the hold at 10 and 11, and bring them out as they see fit (you want 2 levels, so that you can control the spacing). It could work for any levels (say 8 and 9 even). Just a different way of thinking about jurisdiction. Essentially the area guy is thinking like this anyway, once you start holding. He purely reverts to levels during holding, which is why sometimes you have aircraft calling APP when they are not even pointing inbound. They have been told to turn in, call APP. The next one in is being seperated by vertical, but just spaced with lateral, so the area guy doesn't need to be talking to the bottom A/C in the stack. So, instead of APP 'owning' a set distance from the runway (the gate), they own the levels underneath the hold. This could be switched on and off as required. It's much more efficient, because instead of area sending them all in 10 miles apart or whatever, APP knows when they need a gap for an AUH arrival etc and can control their own inbound flow.
ps. Several pilots have told me that they would much prefer to take the delay in the hold, then just go straight in. It peeves them to come out of the hold, then get vectored all over the terminal area. I think the above scenario would alleviate that (which is caused by the current crappy system). It's frustrating to sit and watch the beautiful stream you have worked to create go to hell in the terminal area, because there are a couple in from the east and 1 from AUH. There has to be a better way.
Last edited by ferris; 13th January 2004 at 11:12.