Originally Posted by
Check Airman
If DLH management is going to write stupid rules for their pilots to follow, they can continue to expect lengthy delays while operating in US airpsace.
They could have done a visual approach. That was not banned. The rules state ATC are responsible separation in Class B, there are no written exemptions for KSFO (that anyone has posted so far). They were not given the operational priority under “first come, first served”, as written in the rules, they were due.
This event sounds very much like a controller with no capacity to accommodate the DLH even if he wanted to. He’s working too many planes already because there’s no staff and no end in sight. I strongly suspect the reason people were so adamant SFO is busier than LHR is because it
sounds so much busier. If the frequency is regularly so busy every other transmission is stepped on, that is a huge capacity issue. It’s not that controllers fault, but it is an ATC issue.
Read the interviews in the NYT combined with some of the stuff in the Austin incident interviews (which included the tower controller not being able to state what separation rules are or how to apply them, sound familiar?). US ATC is stretched well beyond breaking point. You’re the one flying in it not me, I hope for your sake you aren’t the one caught up when the FAAs chickens come home to roost.