My attention has just been drawn to this thread and I just wanted to say of couple of things. I am a pilot with said airline. I take an enormous personal pride in my dealings with ATC as we have a joint safety responsibility. Some of the sweeping generalisations being made in this thread are quite offensive, unnecessary, and outwith the characteristic professionalism that we all expect of eachother. Calling eachother names such as monkeys and f****wits does your profession an enormous disservice - IMHO more so than the original pilot transgression. I would urge you to consider how this thread would read to an outsider - I would be left thinking that both sides are as bad as eachother. Just my 2p worth.