Concern for the safety of my aircraft, those around me and the passengers that pay a lot of money to my company for a safe passage to their destinations.
I should start by saying I never have any problems with departures from Beijing International Airport. Departures always seem to happen according to expectation.
My concern is the repeated and continuous arrival STAR and runway changes. Even the other day I had a STAR issued that does not even come up as a possible selection in the database for the runway that was intended for our landing. This complicated the programming of my aircraft's navigation system.
Let me just tell you what happens every time your controllers change our clearance:
1. One pilot can no longer monitor the aircraft's profile or flight path.
2. The FMS needs to be reprogrammed this takes time as there is a lot of changes to be made, Routing, navaids,performance, MDA, weather all needs to be modified every time you change our arrival runway and STAR.
3. As already stated 1 pilot enters the other then has to verify that all data is correct for the latest change.
4. Mean while my aircraft is traveling forward at a speed up to 500 kts ground speed and Rates of descent in excess of 2000 FPM.
5. Then we have to re brief the other Pilot on our expected actions, missed approach etc.
6. Now as a crew we have lost somewhere between 2 and 5 minutes depending on the sequence of events. During this time ATC interrupt with new altitudes headings and other instructions.
Can you see the possibility for errors?
7. If we have an expectation of STAR and Runway combination we can enter this data into the aircraft's navigation system during cruise at a leisurely pace instead of a rushed manner during a high workload situation during descent. Before commencing descent the crews best guess of STAR arrival and Runway is entered.
8. I do understand that weather conditions change which will change best laid plans, however I know from experience this is not the cause of Beijing scrambled descent clearances and arrival
We always try our best to accommodate but I think you need to be aware of the problems you are causing and the possible safety implications.
What I as a professional Pilot would like to see change with arrivals into Beijing immediately to avoid any major incidents is to have standard arrival routing's. Standard runways from these arrivals. For example if you are coming in from the south you enter Beijing controlled airspace via WXI this has an arrival runway of either 01 or 19. If you are coming in from the East you enter the control zone via a point to join the pattern for either 01 or 19.
Now if you are coming from the north or west expected arrival runway should be 36L or 18R, this would leave 36R 18L for departures and any over flow. I personally think this would enhance safety and reduce the air traffic controllers work load. Sure if it is a quiet time Radar vectors to shorten the approach is always good for us. However multiple Runway and STARs are not.
To summaries in order to improve safety for your customers, that is the airlines that operate into Beijing. Have clearly defined standard arrivals for North South East and West, have standard runway combinations for each of these directions, this seems to be the case for departures.
Every other airport I have been to around the world has standard arrivals and runways depending on your arrival direction, most airports in china seem to have this as well except Beijing. I am sure if you implement these strategies I have suggested there will be fewer incidents of Pilots carrying out the wrong procedure and I can assure you, your customers Airlines and Pilots would be very thankful as well.
Please bring back the Digital ATIS the voice ATIS is just to hard to listen to and we can't monitor the ATIS during the flight to pick up weather trends.
This has been emailed to CAAC. I wait for a reply.
:ugh :