Thanks for the thoughts on this and maybe i can clear up some Q's by adding a little more detail.
Without completely giving up my anonymity, i was working in the room at the time the events occured and for the record i think it was poor airmanship at the time as i regularly speak to A/C in the Manchester vicinity. There appears to be a trend developing with BA flights where they seem to be expecting little or no holding.
The inbound shuttle was made aware of the holding status pretty much on first call which was plenty south of EGNX. It was advised that slowing down would help the situation as there were already 6/7 A/C in the Dayne hold. The Radar return showed that the pilot was reducing their cruise speed and although the en-route section of Manchester can't provide EAT's, the A/C was given all the information they could reasonably expect.
The A/C entered the hold at FL130 and only when they got half around their first hold did they inform anyone that they cold only go round one more time.
At this time they were the #3 A/C from Dayne with at last 2 more A/C holding in both the EGCC northerly holds. On transferal to approach control the pilot was offered to call an emergency which was declined leaving a couple of options to ATC. effectively these were to give the A/c some low form of priority (queue jumping) or continue with the normal sequencing thus forcing the shuttle pilot to div to an alternate.
As i previously stated, the late call from the pilot as well as the lack of contingency fuel and the potential increase in workload of a late divert in what was an already very busy pieace of airspace (those of you that use the SE EGCC sector will no doubt know) was IMO poor form.
Please keep the constucive stuff coming as it is always useful to talk to the guys you work with outside of work!
And no I'm not listening on an airband receiver Gary Lager as i barely get paid enough already and can't imagine 'playing' planes for fun.
