After having finally reading that latest fleet letter to us all, it cleared up some issues I have always wondered about wrt to ATC in Dubai. For me, it was a bit eye-opening with regards to limitations that you guys have.
In fact, last night, coming into Dubai, my partner was bitching about being told to speed up, and then once we were passed on to the next controller we were told of our impending hold at Desdi. My colleague then blasted off into a long winded bitch session about the lack of intercommunication between controllers. I just sat there wondering why he was preceding to the hold at 300kts when ATC told us that we were absolved of airspeed restrictions. So, in my best efforts not to tell him how to fly a profile, I gently asked ATC if we could slow down without conflicting with other traffic. Due to this, we never even entered the hold and we entered the pattern with about an 6 minute delay and hardly any consequences wrt to fuel.
All I am saying is that its good that we talk about these things. You have different priorities than we do and knowing for example why you keep us at 8000' on downwind and expect us to be able to take a short turn to final makes my job easier. Energy management in some aircraft can be a bitch if you don't know how to do it properly and keep that in mind please, especially considering the varied levels of experience at Ek.
I will say one thing though, that guy working before the 'Director' did a very good job in my opinion. I have no idea what nationality but i suspect something like a Zimbo or South African, but my congrats to him.
Then again, listening to the putz behind us, and yeah i don't mind saying this, the American pilot who clearly thought the world was his oyster, I can understand why he got the run around from ATC. I mean really, is it so tough to say........... UAE control, Emirates 9978, passing FL 146 for 8000 feet ? What the hell is with this............. AHHH, this is Emirates 9978 checkin in with you, down to 8 thousand. ?????????
I can totally understand why you guys get frustrated some times.