A few months ago there was a really interesting thread here, started by Antigua after an ATCO MORed him for asking for a little more room on final when tight on fuel. Well, listen to this:
Whilst in the hot seat this morning I was handed traffic from a most respectable airline which was "...tight on fuel so don't tuck him up". I gave him an extra couple of miles. As I cleared him to descend on the glide he said "be advised we have no go-around capability." S**T! I advised the tower to sterilise the runway by sending the traffic ahead around.
A while later their ops. called to say thank you but not being happy I asked for the skipper to call me. A really nice bloke and we had a long chat.
When operating aircraft at the limit of their performance it is inevitable that occasionally things will go wrong and I don't have a problem with that. Everything seemed to conspire against him and after holding for 10 minutes he landed with enough fuel for about one and a half radar circuits. Had he gone around it would have been a MAYDAY and Captains choice would have been a 180 onto the other end. What I cannot understand is that when asked by TWR (as he started to catch the preceding) if he wanted to declare a fuel emergency (doesn't actually exist) he said "Not yet.".
There is no history of abuse and had we been fully aware of his circumstances his delay could easily have been, "managed".
PAN is bad enough and it gets the desired reaction, let's not go near a MAYDAY.
Don't worry, speak up early!
Point 4
