NoD,
Thanks for that answer... When an aircraft, say in the LAM hold, nnow uses the totally legitimate ability to "dispense" with the Altn, what succinct RT phrase can we use to ATC to indicate this? It's nothing formal, but, like you, it can only help that ATC, and other aircraft are aware... All will get a "feel" for when numerous aircraft are getting into this situation
I've been working when a/c in the hold have said words along the lines of "be advised we are now committed to landing at Heathrow"..."roger" was my reply because I couldn't think of anything else to say.
Here we get into Catch 22 again. If you tell me you're committed to landing at Heathrow, there are big delays for whatever reason but the wx is such we can be doing 2.5nm spacing, would you expect to be given more room in front of you so that you're fairly aassured of a landing clearance but with the consequence of knocking back the EAT of everyone else still holding and so making life more uncomfortable for them?
If you get extra room you knock back everyone else by a couple of minutes but you probably land, if you don't get extra room and have to go around and call mayday we'll be breaking all the traffic on intermediate and final approach off so that you can come back in with minimum delay and everyone else gets knocked back probably 10 or so minutes and the situation escalates.
Same situation applies in that if a lot of aircraft start telling us they're committing so we get a "feel" for it...what sort of position does that put us in? We've got to keep landing at the minimum interval to keep the landing rate up and the delays to a minimum whilst knowing that the first missed approach is likely to cause serious problems for a number of a/c.
Hopefully I'll be on a day off when the sh
t starts to fly
WF.