RANTING ATCO ALERT!!!!
And the award for the most obnoxious pilot this evening goes to.... SIA320, inbound to Lamborne
Told on first call to Lam sector controller (me...) that delay is 10-15 mins...
"Roger, request no delay and priority approach due to an extremely sick pax"
"SIA320, roger, you'll have to declare a Pan for that at least"
"Er, roger, we'll take the delay..."
Right, says I, and again suggest that if he declares we would give him a straight in approach with no probs. The pilot comes back with the story of the sick pax and the fact that he was only asking out of compassion, before finishing with the classic comment.........
"You would have done something 2-3 years ago..."
The moral of this tale? If you declare, we will clear the skies. We will not second guess you, or question why, we will clear the skies and get you in ASAP. If you don't, you're just another plane in the system, handled just like all the others, although we will think that you are simply tryin to buck the system and might not be quite so polite to you in future!!!!
Rant over, thanks for listening!!!