a few Muscat thoughts
Hi all,
I can only echo what many of the ATCO’s have said thus far.
Standard phraseology is there for a reason, it gives us, the ATCO’s the information that we need on first contact. This means it saves time. Time is a very much undervalued part of our profession, we need every bit of it in busy periods.
I have a particular beef with Indian Airlines….can you guys PLEASE listen continuously, not just when you feel like it, on the frequency whilst in the Muscat FIR?
Could you also PLEASE answer with your own callsign, not for everyone else? Oh and whilst I am at it, could you PLEASE use your damned callsign when replying to an instruction.
Oh yes, can everyone PLEASE readback a change of frequency instruction. There is possibly nothing more frustrating than having to call several time to see if you copied the change of freq, and then if no response is received, having to go to the next controller to see if you have checked in…it wastes my time and it wastes his time, and time is something we do not have a whole lot of hereabouts.
This problem is not just endemic to Indian Air, many, many, many, flights check in and then seem to just not be there when we REALLY need to talk to them.
As someone said, it would be a lovely place if we had the time to fill in all the incident reports, but I have to say, a snarl seems to work far better and calls for less paperwork. Lazy bu66er me.
BTW, mine is only one of the two irritated Australian accents you are likely to hear in Muscat.
Whislt I am in rant mode…can everyone reading kindly take note, “Stand by” means hang on a sec, don’t just say whatever you just said again, or you will hear the irritated Aussie accent again.
As to not meeting instructions, I had to apologise to Bombay recently as two Saudi (Haj charters) did not meet their time requirements entering Bombay’s FIR.
I don’t need to point out that Bombay don’t run to a Radar 100NM off the Omani coastline so they actually use your times for procedural separation.
On the ASPUX track, Muscat also lose you quite a long way before ASPUX, so we can’t radar monitor your time requirements, we have to trust that the times you give are actually correct.
Please remember that these requirements are not given for controller amusement, they are to keep a legal minimum longitudinal or vertical separation standard between the two of you.
If you wish to argue that 10 minutes longitudinal is ridiculous, I’m all for it, however we don’t get to pick and choose which standards that we apply, and Bombay certainly don’t.
As ATCO1962 mentioned, on A791 we need to know if you can be level by KANAS, or Tehran will be rightly gunning for us if you wander across several thousand feet below what you read back as a requirement.
Same goes with GFA ex MCT for EGTAL, don’t tell us what you would really love to cross EGTAL at…tell us what you can ACTUALLY do, it makes everyones life simpler, especially these days with so much traffic going on the northern routes. Just remember guys, there is generally someone coming the other way!
Ahhhh, I feel better having got that off my chest!
ps Ironbutt, the ATCO may not have been able to vector you off track, there are lots of cases in the MCT FIR that we just can't take you off track due to oppostie traffic or Military areas...I have no idea what was the case in your circumstance but there are a couple of reasons...apart from the obvious!
If anyone has any questions for Muscat, let us know...we aim to please...