Vintage ATCO,
If I addressed a copy of my flight plan to any ATC unit and subsequently found that they had ignored both the flight plan and the departure time I would considder that an MOR could be appropriate.
The UK has no differences filed to ICAO ALerting Service requirements when ATC units are concerned. (The only difference applies when the destination has no ATS).
You are required to initiate the "uncertainty" phase when no communication has been receved from an aircraft within a period of 30 minutes after the time a communication should have been received.
The MATS Part 1 does quite correctly point out that strict compliance with a flight plan can not be expected of non-radio aircraft.
However aircraft with radio who make in-flight changes to flight plans are required to notify those changes to the appropriate agency. Since you will rarely issue a clearance for a non-radio aircraft to transit Class D zones these days I think we can assume that transit aircraft are going to be radio equipped.
For aircraft who sufer radio failure in flight - the procedures are well documented.
Thus we have the situation where you recive a flight plan and a departure message but ignore them and will be unable to determine that an aircraft is in need of alerting service.
If your argument for ignoring my flight plan messages are that radio equipped VFR flights bimble all over the place and often don't bother to call or go elsewhere.........are you in a position to provide figures for the number of flight plans addressed to you who have a departure time and who subsequently do not turn up without telling you first?........doubt it since you discard them.
Perhaps the answer is not to arbitarily reduce the alerting service you are required to provide but to ensure that pilots who file a flight plan comply with the requirements to stick to that plan as much as possible unless they pass changes.
I can understand why units in Class G such as London info do not refer to any flight plans..........there is no requirement to call them. However if my route is clearly through the controlled airspace overhead your airport then the only option I have following my filed route is to call you and the least you could do after I have warned you in advance of my impending request is to be ready when I call on time and on route.
If on the other hand you see a 7600 passing round the zone at about the time I told you I would be there then you might like to pass on the posibility that I have had a radio failure!
Throw the flight plans in the bin and some day the question will be.........You got the flight plan but ignored it and after a surviveable accident, the pilot died of Hypothermia in a field 20nm from you but you never did what you are requirted to do..........provide an alerting service when the radio equipped flight failed to show up...........Can you honestly say that in that case you met your responsibilities?
Regards,
DFC