I witnessed what was quite probably worst airmanship I’ve seen in some time last night when the pilot of a widebody aircraft landing at Dubai was told to exit at N6 and he wanted to take it through to the end to turn right for a shorter taxi to the stand.
On finals he asked a second time to be allowed to take it through to the end, saying he would expedite clearing the runway. Tower refused and repeated that he should take N6. (All incoming traffic had been holding and at least one non-local aircraft in the sequence behind the aircraft in question was making it very clear that he was getting very close to minimum fuel.)
Tower directed a widebody to line up behind the landing aircraft and be ready immediate. The pilot of the landing aircraft stood on his brakes, bringing the aircraft to a near stop quite some distance from N6, and then proceeded at what I can only describe as a leisurely pace towards the N6 exit. What astounded me was that he then proceeded to lecture the Tower controller – on ****ing Tower frequency - that he would have taken less time on the runway if he’d been allowed to take it through to the end. This prevented the controller from giving the departing aircraft his takeoff clearance, (not that he could have for the first half of the conversation, for the landing aircraft was still on the runway).
It was quite obvious that the landing pilot was attempting to make a point in being slow in clearing the runway, and also clear that and his extended transmission as he taxied clear delayed the departing aircraft from taking off, which meant that the next aircraft in the landing sequence was forced to go around.
Piss poor effort in my humble opinion, and I hope the person involved is very embarrassed at his behaviour in retrospect. He should also consider himself very lucky if the ATCO concerned hasn’t made a complaint to his company, because if he has, I suspect it will be a very unpleasant tea a bikkies he has with his fleet captain.
***
Quick change of subject: to the DXB Tower controllers. Gents, at most other airports, the ATCOs are quite comfortable in allowing an aircraft to continue the approach down to 200 feet and even lower before making them go around because the runway if still occupied. (In Heathrow, for instance, which Dubai is fast approaching in levels of traffic at certain times of day, it’s not unheard of to be given clearance to land in the flare – around 50 feet.)
I can only assume you must have a set of rules in place demanding that you instruct a landing aircraft to go around if the runway is still occupied when the landing aircraft passes 1000 feet and that sometimes, some of you allow that rule to ‘creep’ just a little. I’ve certainly be forced to go around on more than one occasion at Dubai in circumstances I would describe as totally unnecessary (twice now at around 900 feet with the aircraft ahead well clear of the runway as we passed over it in the missed approach).
Certainly most EK aircraft, and I suspect most other carriers operating into Dubai, are frequently arriving these days with not a lot of fuel in reserve, and an unnecessary go around can leave crews very close to the line in fuel reserves.
***
In closing, can I open the Dubai vectoring can of worms again? Please put arriving aircraft into a hold close in rather than the low level, too slow, cross country navexes we suffer now. (A holding pattern over Sharjah VOR has already been suggested in an earlier thread.) I have learnt to my cost that I have to allow as much as 800 kgs more for final vectoring at Dubai than at any other airport I operate into. (Hint, anything under 230 knots for a 777-300 at or near max landing weight involves extending flap, when the fuel flows spike up considerably. Anything under 170 knots demands final flap, which involves lowering the gear, at that sends the fuel flows into orbit, particularly if we have to fly level, as we all too often have to from 20 odd miles out.) A hold over Sharjah with a minimum hold height of around 7000 to 6000’ with a descending S turn onto a 10 mile final (or less) for either runway would be infinitely better than what we do now.