Hmm. The last thing i wanted to do was suggest that PF were better than PH and kick off another argument. Too late,and looking at my original reply,I sort of did just that. Having just finished my six days and arrived back from a club, I'm a bit tired and pished, so this post may well poke a stick into somebody as well.
I have no idea about the actual figures but PH has noticably more movements than PF. Between perhaps 2300 and 0600 at a guess there may be 10-20 movements of cargo aircraft.So these extra night movements don't make a significant difference in the runway movements between the two airports. PH has consistently more movements throughout the whole day from the morning rush to the late night(2100-2230)bunch of arrivals.
The differences that i can see from my TALLA sector point of view is that PF has a larger and more effective radar vectoring area that can allow the radar controller to,within reason,sequence anything handed to them from the four Scottish sectors that they accept arrivals from, no matter how disjointed or poor the presentation of traffic is,without the need to hold. At PH it is a little different,the RVA is boxed in by the PF-PH buffer to the west, the edge of the TMA to the north and east and also at the south if TALLA hands over traffic late. So despite the fact that PH only accepts arrivals from TALLA and TAY, they can have a much harder job getting them slowed down and on the ILS than PF have. As someone else has pointed out,part of the reason is that the PF arrivals are ALWAYS cleared to be min. stack at LANAK due to the interaction with the Deancross departures from PH,but the arrivals to PH on any of the TWEED arrivals have no interaction with any SIDS and TALLA can get away with giving traffic a when ready clearance to min. stack instead of giving a level by TARTN stipulation as per the standing agreement. I have been guilty of this myself at times and this can really hinder the PH radar controller with high and fast traffic being unable to "go down and slow down". A point taken on board by myself and I think one that has to be universally adopted by all TALLA controllers. It has been pointed out that most of the PH movements are of small or medium wake vortex category which allows shorter gaps on final,and departure, with the slow smalls being able to go a minute behind the fast mediums, can't remember the exact speed differential necessary. However with the exception of Emirates at lunchtime and the new Pakistan service at night, the vast majority of the PF heavies are early morning transatlantic arrivals, so I don't think this constitutes a major difference in the ops. between the two airfiels either.
Just a little early morning opinion from a tipsy TMA controller with absolutely no approach control experience, so feel free to tear it to shreds!
As an aside for the airfield controllers I am interested in visiting for a look about and a chat. Visited PF twice before i was valid but another visit can certainly do no harm, would like to visit PH to discuss some of the problems raised in this thread and for a look at your new home,and also the Scottish TMA's forgotten airfield,at least in terms of this thread,Prestwick, which in the coming years is going to have an ever increasing impact on TMA operations at Scottish. A busy airfield in the mornings too now, don't think O'Leary liked it when we started putting MDI's on there as well! Fell free to PM me or speak to me on the phone, back in on Sunday morning,cheers Rolaaand.