Time to throw my two penny worth in. Ex UK, EGKK tower and radar, now Dubai tower and radar. Firstly some of the statements from the pilots about how they will spend as much time on the runway as they want, or do there own vortex etc is prety unproffesional and not helping making a very awkward situation at Dubai worse.
The complaints and requests we get on the R/T here, never happened in the UK, when asked to fly 160kts to 4 DME at EGKK, pilots do it if they can't comply they are broken off and repositioned, fact. When given take off clearance they roll, when told to vacate the runway they expedite, we don't tell inbound crews to expect late landing clearance, it always is late.
The situation at Dubai is awkward, the airport has got too busy too quickly, the procedures are abysmal, and the staffing levels low. Losing 10 controllers this year and we are already short staffed, ATCO's are tired. Think we can all work out how long its going to take to train up the necessary replacements.
Going back to procedures, how about this for a rule. Between landing and departing aircraft we have to apply runway seperation, ie the landing aircraft MUST be over the threshold of the landing runway when the departing aircraft is over the threshold at the upwind end, a full runway length between them, thats 4km. Total crap when trying to run single runway ops, and an indication of why things run smoother at other airports.
By the way if ATCO's don't adhere to these procedures they are suspended, and that can mean re-training, another full practical check, and written and oral test. Too many incidents and you are sacked!!!
Inbound procedures, the UAE have to provide us with 15 or 20 mile seperation in trail between aircraft. Riduculous distance, and I can say that You guys at the UAE centre are doing well to achieve. I agree holding is best, but holds only work if the approach controller can have control over the holds, so when gap sizes change, depending on wether the tower controller needs gaps, the approach controller can bring more off the hold or leave them in it. Simple really.
Good procedures evolve, they don't happen overnight, unfortunaly that his not happening in the UAE, nobody is willing to accept some responsibility and make the changes.
Enough said really.