howdy cat,
Complete agreement about lousy flight planning but this doesn't have anything to do with the "punishing aircraft" thread.
It seems that when the original authorities drew up our manuals years ago, they foresaw the need to read out route clearances precisely because they knew that no flight planning system would ever be infallible and we can see that years down the track. No amount of good theory can ever put paid to reality, which is that most aircraft/crew file plans correctly and transmit them to the appropriate ATC providers; however, a number slip through that aren't correct, weren't sent or were misplaced by some briefing/ops office.
In the interests of safety, we encourage all our ATCOs and trainees to read complete route clearances, no matter how onerous or strange it seems. We've had a number of incidents because aircraft have turned onto unexpected airways and we'll never know how many incidents we haven't seen because of this system.
And pin, I'm 42
Haven't you examined my birth certificate??
