Hi Welliewanger,
We do the same, always brief what we think we will get, and plan 2 as well, but frequently the STARs and runways are changed, I have even had a change to the change during the one transmission. And again just recently we were issued one star and r/w immediately changed frequency and were issued another combination.
Hi caucatc,
Thanks for the info. Yes I understand that everyone wants to reduce taxi time as I am no different. Surely some better system can be put in place to accommodate this, eg BA parks at T3 and will always expect to land on this rwy and this star as primary choice. Same would obviously apply to all other airlines. And if there is an overflow for a particular runway during a busy period the overflow star and rwy combination could be used. If we could expect this, the FM can be programmed with the normal arrival and the overflow arrival, they both could be briefed and takes a very short time to change between the two arrivals. Thus reducing the extra workload that seems to happen in my experience anyway.
I just don't like the uncertain nature that is Beijing arrival. I know my company has had many meetings with management in Beijing and there has been some progress. I personally don't think it has to be that hard.
Now I don't know if this is true but I heard along time ago CX stopped sending Pilots under command training to Beijing and again I am only guessing this was to reduce failures during their training.
Will send you some mail a bit latter
Cheers.
davey