Thanx for your speedy reply exeng. I totally understand your points. What I tried to get across (admittedly not very well) is that if we suddenly lose the runway that you are making an approach to, and you are extremely tight on fuel thus necessitating a mayday call then even despite the nature of your situation it may not be possible to land on the other runway. The reasons for it are as follows.... .. .- If you are inside approx 6 DME the departure controller may NOT be able to make the runway available for use. With one on and one across the CAT 1 bar it will take at least 2 minutes to get the runway clear. This can be achieved by one of two ways. Either he clears the first one for take-off and then clears the next one as soon as the preceding aircrafts wheels are off the runway, or he clears the first one for take-off and taxis the second one down the runway to vacate. Both of these take at minimum of two minutes to do and at approximately 3 miles a minute on the inbound this will make for a very late landing clearance at best.. .Both of these situations are also conditional on other things as well.... If the preceding aircraft to the one on the runway is on the same route then the controller will either have to wait for a 2 minute route separation (at which point he can cancel the line up of the following aircraft) or he can launch it and attain separation using radar vectors. If however there is a wake vortex issue then this is not an option. The wake vortex issue is also a problem with European operators following 757s and they often ask for an extra minute on the runway (most of them wait until in position before informing us). We are obliged to give it to them. All we can do is explain your situation and hope that they are understanding. . .. .All these situations hinge as well on the second aircraft for departure not being across the CAT 1 bar. If they are then the runway is occupied. Obtaining a speedy vacation is very difficult to do particularly on 27R where the first permissible turn-off is at Block 16.. .. .So, although you may declare a mayday due fuel shortage, and we will pull out all the stops for you, it still may not be possible to make a runway available for use.. .. .The best solution I can think of is to declare a pan as early as possible and give us sufficient time to plan for any eventuality. If you are interested in a visit then please drop me an e-mail. We would be more than happy to show you our operation ():-)