Even though it may seem like we do things without any reason at Fajs there is method to our madness. You must remember that there is one landing runway at Fajs. Traffic approaches the Tma from all sides to land on that runway. We need to sequence the traffic inbound in a fashion that is most expeditious. When we work out our sequence from far away sometimes if two acft are the same distance from jhb a speed restriction is put in place by either speeding someone up or slowing someone down.
Once the space required is achieved than plans change and we now have a bigger sequence to take into account. With all the different acft types that fly into jhb from C208-B777, it makes life quite hard for us to get everyone properly seperated on final. Remember ypu need 5 miles on final and 8 miles behind a heavy, the Tma becomes small very quickly!!!
I think the main reason pilots get frustrated is a lack of THE BIGGER PICTURE, the sky is usually full and we do the best we can. The best way to understand why we do what we do is to spend a day at the control centre and get a better idea of THE BIGGER PICTURE, i think you will appreciate us more once you have.And just a thanks to those pilots that do as we ask, without question and make controlling a pleasure!!!!