Tiger Pilots in/out of Sydney
To all those Tiger guys/gals now flying increasingly out of Sydney,
I don't want this thread to turn into a bitch session but rather to tell you that people are watching and there are some of you guys behaving in an atrocious way in Sydney. The usual sequence is get ready for pushback, ask for pushback, then actually pushback. I have personally observed you guys ask for push, stooge around for another 3 to 4 minutes then actually go...in those 3 minutes you could have another aircraft pushed and gone or another aircraft dock onto an adjacent bay.
Some examples:
Virgin xxx: request pushback
ATC: Virgin xxx pushback approved northern disconnect
Virgin xxx: pushback northern disconnect
Tiger xxx: request pushback
ATC: tiger xxx push approved southern disonnect
Tiger xxx: pushback to southern disconnect
Now the Virgin pushes, does its starts and calls for Taxi and the Tiger hasn't even started moving.
ATC: Tiger xxx, Syd ground, are you pushing if not hold position.
Tiger xxx: Ahh, yeah, we're pushing now
ATC: That's not what I said but since you're already doing it then too late.
Similar example last night with 2 Tigers and a Virgin trying to pushback and get out before curfew.
Tiger xxx: request puschback
ATC: Tiger xxx pushback approved
Then the Virgin and Tiger call for push in sequence.
4 whole minutes pass (remember folks, curfew)
ATC: Tiger xxx, are you pushing back anytime soon?
Tiger xxx: Oh, we're starting engines but you can let the other tiger go 1st
ATC: No, Virgin's next in the queue, Tiger xxx hold position, Virgin push approved.
Then there was a discussion of how curfew ops work out of Sydney between Tiger and ATC. Tiger was not aware that if Taxi clearence is recieved before 11pm then they can T/O anytime after 11pm. It sounded like the ATCO was desperately trying to hint to him to just ask for push and taxi and he'd be covered, but alas the nudge nudge hin hint was lost on him.
Anecdotal evidence shows that these incidents are not isolated and I hope some sort of message gets through to what is hopefully the minority causing the issues.
I also acknowledge that there me other issues at play here such as ramp staff shortage or poor training and therefore taking them forever to hook up towbar etc etc and that it's not neccessarily the tech crew's faults at play.
Rant over!