Squibbler
When Liverpool call the MACC sector with the message "It'll be 09 for the XXX", how is that taking into account whether it suits us ?!
To be honest, it makes very little difference to the operation of the sector if you do decide to slip one in on the non-duty runway.
HOWEVER, what makes us all look totally unprofessional is when the runway is chopped and changed.
I understand you're trying to be expeditious for the traffic (as we all are), but to take yesterday morning's EZY flight into EGGP from EGAA, his runway for landing was changed 5 (yes, FIVE) times in the time it took him to fly from the IOM to WAL.
Having been told it was 09, we'd got him down to 3,500ft before WAL, only to be then told there was a WAL dep coming off 27 and that he would be landing on 27 afterall.
I'm not mud-slinging here, but trying to be constructive.
To my mind (and I'm not trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs), it seems better to delay the outbound for a couple of minutes seeing as the inbound had been descended and vectored towards 09, with about 15nm to run. Instead, the inbound found himself down at 3500ft with an extra 35 miles of track, low and slow.....and the pilot's tone of voice made it very clear what he thought about it ( It's not our fault guv, honest !)
Another question: how soon after start-up is EGGP approach told by the tower of an impending departure ? I wonder if this may have been a factor in the occurrence described above.
The sims were fun weren't they !!
Cheers