An interesting debate. Just to throw a little into the mix. Now obviously neighbouring Portugal might not be as busy in some area's as Spain, but I know for a fact that they endeavour to give every commercial and indeed light aircraft the shortest route possible and as far as I have watched them, 95% of the time you enter the system and get a direct to your exit of the area (names of the places escape me).
Now originally the thread pointed to AENA becoming private and the loss of spanish controllers T & C's. Now I don't want my post to be deleted, but I can understand they want to keep their 9*** per month salary and pension. this seems like a valid point, but I haven't seen spanish ATC strike....ahm... at least nothing like their northern counterparts with the curved bay.
One factor noone has explored is the general reluctance to give speed control. One of the causes of this are the pilots of spanish airlines that will remain nameless refusing to accept it. Spain has a very advanced ATC system in place already and at times the controllers situational awareness leaves a little to be desired, planes hopefully slow down on approach!
That said, I am starting to be concerned people have gotten too obsessed with being top of their fuel league table that they are forgetting the art of negotiation. In my brief experience I have been granted short cuts that I didn't even want, however, most situations where a direct is denied as previously stated have a genuine reason.
Lastly did the OP consider the controllers he might have been dealing with maybe didn't know how to explain in plain language why they couldn't acceed to your request? I'm not defending either party here just laying down some topics for further discussion.
Lets continue....
