Bedder Believeit
We all agree that runway changes are a pain and any sane professional appreciates the challenges HK presents in both deciding and administering a runway change.
You called for suggestions. How about warning of an impending runway change on the ATIS with an expected time of change?
I have no doubt you will reply that you do this in any event. The reality in my experience is that I have never seen it on the ATIS and often we are taxi-ing for 07 and then told that we will be for 25 (or vice-versa). However, when we look out the window or at TCAS we can see aircraft on the 25 approach. We, not unreasonably, conclude that someone in the "ATC world" both knew and auctioned a runway change a long time ago, but that information was not communicated down the line.
Perhaps the answer lies in the person who decides runway changes, sets off a series of dominoes that results in a new ATIS containing a warning of impending change and expected time. This should also be backed up by a combine call on Gnd and Del along the lines, " new ATIS x, expected runway change at ......".
This will reduce cockpit workload during a dynamic phase and hopefully reduce the amount of radio calls on these freqs. Whether or not combine calls are made on the various radar freqs for inbound traffic, I'm not so sure......
Just sayin like....innit...
Last edited by Liam Gallagher; 24th May 2012 at 21:52.