Hi,
I work as atc in LEAL (just TWR, not APP) and I´m getting amazed of the lack of respect and knowledge many of you are showing about our job.
As others have pointed out, in Spain we NEVER give priority to any traffic except in cases of emergencies, slots or when applying minimum avarage delay (letting a fast aircraft go before a slow one will always benefit the general traffic flow). I must make clear that since long ago we do not receive any privileges from Iberia or other national(?) airways.
Apart from that, how about looking things from other perspective? Have you ever wondered how some pilots make our (your) work easier than others? Let´s see:
Is it normal to step in the local freq (yes the one we use when adjusting incoming and departing traffics on a single runway airport) to call out your callsing, aircraft type, stand, destination, atis info copied and requesting your atc clearance within 45 minutes or more in advance of your EOBT? do you know how valuable can the freq ocupation time be in many situations? do you all check there is a ground freq for that purposes? are you all aware we usally do not have your FPL at hand (and thus your ATC clearance) until 30 min before your EOBT?
Are you really aware we usually have a great view of the apron from our towers? Why then say you are ready for start and/or push back if we clearly see all your bay doors open or a bunch of handling vehicles just behind your shiny B737. Believe me, it happens more than you would imagine.
Talking about language and oral comprehension. What part of “when ready for departure call....” isn´t clear enough? The thing is that most pilots step in the freq invariably without being ready therefore requiring for more more useless transmissions.
And this should make just enough for a start, I could post a real long list of similar complaints (I´ve filled last month two air miss reports, both of them pointed the fault on foreing crews). The thing is I believe we both (pilots and atcos) work together to make flying safetier, faster and easier and therefore we all should do our best to reduce the workload on the other part.
Don´t think however we are not on are way to improve our part. I´m personally encouraging the use of english when situational awareness is required, and I know my mates are doing so more and more each time. We´ve finally (after years of constant requests) got a CFMU terminal to make flow arrangements (namely REA´s) much more fast. We´ve got a much more efficient LoA with the airport operations office improving taxi to stand and pushback operations. We are constantly requesting essential works to be made in the navigation side of the airport (new speedways, bigger holding bays, ILS for rwy28...). We all know there is a lot more to do, but I´m sure we are more in it than many of the ones who just complain without having a clue of anything but their butts.
By the way, when flying anywhere I always ask to visit the frontdeck, and if posible see the aproach and landing. I like to listen and talk to pilots to see how their work goes and what they think about ours. I wonder how many of you have visited one of those atc facilities you´re so easily talking about. Needless to say you will anytime receive a warm welcome at LEAL.
See you.