Originally Posted by PPRuNe Radar
Permission cannot be withheld without reasonable cause. We all have the RIGHT to use our soverign airspace.
Reasonable cause would be the airspace operating at capacity, a figure which is known by the ATC unit, the UK Flow Management Unit, and Eurocontrol.
Just because the Eurocontrol flow management limits have been reached within a block of airspace, that does not mean transits are not possible. Heathrow CTR operates at the flow limits for much of the day, yet it's still possible to get a special VFR crossing.
Whilst LHR transits are handled by a separate controller, more to the point is that you can frequently contact Luton for a zone transit and you can hear the controller vectoring a number of closely spaced arrivals onto the ILS, yet they almost always manage to provide a crossing.
I suspect the reason Stansted act the way they do is that if they just tell you to standby and never get back to you then they don't have to log that as a refused transit - you've voluntarily changed your mind. If they were to actually tell you to bu**er off, then it'd have to be counted as a refused transit, pilots would be able to submit reports of refusals, and Stansted would have to explain their surprisingly high refusal rate.