I've had the misfortune of being based in Madrid Barajas for the past 8 months, and from my first hand, day to day experience of dealing with the donkey air traffic controllers there i can only say that is both a DISGRACE and a SCANDAL that such a low level of professionalism and competency can be allowed to exist at a major international airport.
It's hard to know where to begin when it comes to discussing the range of problems that the controllers cause, so ill just make a list in no particular order:
- There are 4 runways in Madrid, but still the controllers manage to make a mess of almost every approach by giving non sensical speeds and vectors despite having few aircraft to manage due to the amount of runways.
- Most professional air traffic controllers (ie. in countries other than spain) that i have come accross tend to give vectors of 5-10 degrees off track for seperation, in Madrid we get sent 90 degrees off track.
- Preference given every day for Spanish airlines, in particular Iberia, its a regualar procedure coming into Mad that we get slowed down to 220 kts and vectored 90 degrees off course and watch as we are overtaken/undertaken by Iberia/Spanair/Air Europa.
- We have our situational awareness diminished both in the air and on the ground by Spanish being spoken between Spanish ATC and Spanish airlines - absolute madness.
- When checking into the countless approach frequencies/ground frequencies we usually have to repeat ourselves as the controller is not listening on the frequency, their typical response is "station calling"? in a comical confused sounding voice.
- When holding we are never given expected approach times or reasons for holding (its mostly because of their work to rule/strike), often have to ask several times but are usually ignored. Have on several occasions been told '10 minutes' only to be told 10 minutes later that it will be another 10 minutes etc etc.
- Whenever it gets a little bit busy you start hearing nervousness and panic in the controllers voices, whatever extremely low standard that they are trained to does not enable them to deal efficiently with large volumes of aircraft.
- The exrtremely high levels of pay that these 'professionals' receive just adds insult to injury.
Flying between Madrid and London is like flying between two differant planets in terms of air traffic control standards. That such a massive, massive differance in quality can be allowed to exist in this day and age is a scandal. Unfortunately the only way that i can see that the standard will change in Madrid is after an accident is caused by the incompetence of the controllers. It will happen sooner or later.
This is what happens when you give a small special interest group the control over a countries airspace. Their priorities are cushy working conditions and high pay. The least of their concerns is efficiency and high standards. The daily delays caused by their current work to rule is a total disgrace. I hope something changes soon however i doubt it, the Spanish government like most governments in europe are a joke.