stop stop stop,
As a frequent purveyor of the 'B317' shortcut at West Drayton, could you tell me what sort of saving in time and miles this saves you ?
We with our trusty electriconic pointy ruler and measuring tape tool think it saves you about 15 miles.
For when it is offered or not, able answers from my Swanwick colleagues - definite factors being the arrival sequence of other traffic into BB and what sort of onslaught of TMA outbounds we would need to thread you through.
Could I slightly digress here and ask the S27 people why there is an extreme reluctance to accept BB eastbound traffic via B317 ?
Calling up electronic strippery aside it is pretty frustrating for Tc East to do the co-ordination and work for traffic that is 1) islevel at fl210 east or north east of DTY - 30 miles from our boundary and 2) gets vacant levels from you and often passes 5,000 feet above our airspace.
Point being if you haven't already guessed is why are we doing all the work in your airspace ? Cavemonster, to use your phrase there seems to be some inflexibility here.