Agreed shear madness, (Plovett that astounds me!!!!) Someone is responsible for dreaming up that rubbish! But the question has to be asked why? Why now? I reckon it's because up until recent times pilots using the airwaves where mostly Caucasian speaking Engrishmen/shilers. Now we have the airwaves full of not so good speaking Engrish foreign students hence after some level of complaint (from us Good Engrish speaking pilots/ATC'ers) the boffins have done something about it for good or bad, shame it ain't working too good though I'd like a buck for ever R/T exchange I have overheard that I struggle to understand what they are saying. EG: Aerial work over an aid, me takes me hat off to the ATC'ers who have excellent verbal filters in their bag of ATC tricks!
I know we have to have fees etc it's all about total cost recovery (the only transport industry that's not subsidized) but man some common sense wouldn't go astray here!!!
What next? A charge for not sitting upright in yr pilots seat?
Wmk2