Some time ago, out of London area climbing to FL 260 (?) dct KOK, upon first contact with Maastricht at about FL 220: "xyz nnn g'morning, after KOK dct BOMBI(,) climb FL 350." Verbatim readback with selection of FL350 on flightdeck. After some time and ensuing small talk at FL250 we decided to seek immediate clarification wheather KOK had been a condition to climb clearance or not. It had not been, everybody happy, SRM applied (separation resource mngmt
).
Now, my question to you ATC partners: was the instruction potentialy misleading or was it by the book only we failed to recognize? What would be the proper and foolproof (receiver-wise) way to give a conditional or non-conditional instruction in this example? I can indeed imagine "clb FL 350 dct KOK BOMBI next", still I am interested in your views, in particular for the conditonal case.
Thank you,
FD.