Staynes (and others)
And another point, why does Bahrain insist on telling you your flight plan route and getting you to repeat it back
Because we are required to do so by our employer- under threat of dismissal.
Why if we can fly from USA / Australia / Far East / South America all the way back to the gulf without having to repeat our flight plan route once
I presume because the tight airspace design in the BAH FIR means that if you deviate unexpectedly, there is a fair chance it will get ugly very quickly. It is also the type of knee-jerk reaction that a manager applies after an incident (or series of incidents) that shows he has done something about it. eg. EK123 enters BAH at BALUS, exiting via IVONI, would be expected to route UL768, however, turns left after BALUS to follow N969. Why wasn't this detected from the flight plan, you say? Because there were 2 flight plans for that flight, and the assistant picked the one he thought it should be, which is different from the one the crew had. How is it possible for a flight to have more than 1 plan, you say? Good question, is the answer (from our end). The record I have seen is 27 flight plans submitted for 1 flight.
The single biggest problem for unexpected route deviations in BAH occurs for a/c tracking on N929, and who are expected to remain on that airway until SILNO. Some turn left at TOBLI to overfly KFA (which they shouldn't do) and almost immediately cross the descending QR arrivals on UN318. Large pucker factor. Note: Some a/c, after reading back the required route, subsequently turn left at TOBLI anyway, which does leave you wondering.
Hope this explains a little of the whys and wherefores, some of which are grey
