As an en-route ATCO from LECB let me give you my point of view on some of the issues addressed in this thread.
I am aware that there are things to improve over here, and I am definitely not satisfied with a quality of service that is described as only marginally better than that of third-world countries. We must do better and while I am sure that a portion of the pilots will tend to rate their own country's ATC as the best, the fact that I hear no complaints about, say, Scandinavians countries make me believe I have to give some credibility to these complaints.
I believe much of the problem has to do with our culture, which favours individualism and creativity rather than strict procedure adherence. That doesn't mean that rules are not followed. Instead, it means that there are a great number of things that are left to the decision of the individual controller, and while it is only natural that there may exist many solutions to a problem some are provably worse (intentional -v-).
It takes time and effort for this culture to evolve. Let me tell you, though, about a couple of things that make me believe such change is indeed happening:
- Enforcing of the CFMU approved profile. This came to be in LECB just two weeks ago. Even though we have some trouble implementing it since our flight strips only show the approved level for the initial climb and we have to do too much button clicking to verify the profile when it's not a straight climb to cruise level, I believe a high proportion of my colleagues is actually following this directive even though some believed it’s better to ask the RFL always at first transmission (hint: it’s not, and please make sure to file a CHG if you do not believe the profile is appropriate, or be sure to refuel enough for that very long segment at FL300)
- Evaluation of competence in English: This comes because of a Eurocontrol directive, but it has kick-started our management into a preemptive testing of our workforce so as to prepare for eventual additional training if needs be. The results are yet to come out, but the fact that we are giving in without too much hassle into this evaluation opens up the door for more of this stuff, which is simply tantamount to a quality assurance process.
With respect to the ever present issue of RT language, let me offer a word of praise to Spanish pilots on this issue. Although admittedly I am quite new on this business, I’ve only spoken English on the frequency whenever a foreign pilot was around (almost always). My trick is to call the Spanish callsigns in Spanish to get their attention, and proceed to give the clearance in English. In all this time only once has a pilot complained that I should talk Spanish to him. Many pilots will readback in Spanish, though, but I believe this technique is enough to improve situational awareness for you language impaired people
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