Exit conditions on the otherside of S8 which is about 25 before NUMPO is still FL330 although they all need to be FL140 by BEDEK which is about 40 before Ockham which is the holding fix for Heathrow.
Ideally before they leave S8, they need to be in one line and streamed nicely as the next sector have to try and integrate them with traffic outbound from Bristol and Cardiff and on headings against inbounds to said airfields and LTMA outbounds in a bit of airspace that's less than 20m wide with a lot of danger areas to the south.
If we put them into the next sector two abreast it can really cause them a shedload of problems as they can rapidly run out of space. Going in above FL140 isn't usually an option as there's southbound traffic at FL150 just after we hand them over so they need to be level.
The above doesn't apply during the first eastbound rush as there's nothing out of the LTMA, it's only later on in the day. Also, it's the same controller working them all the way to BEDEK until around 06.15 local, when the sectors get split.
Our major bugbear is when we get three of them at FL330, 310 and 290 with no effort made to put any speed on them. That used to happen a lot, but thankfully it's a very rare occurrence these days. The other one is when the EVRIN controller gets everything in a nice line which looks lovely and the guy doing BAKUR just lets the stuff run in, we appreciate your sector split is there, but if you could have a look at what the other sectors have got it would make our life easier. That said, when we have stuff going westbound from S8/35 and S9 we don't always look so it's swings and roundabouts.
Giving the traffic to S9 is an option especially if it's coming off the ocean to the South and needs to track up towards EVRIN, and more so if it's going to get caught up with a load coming through BAKUR. At the times in question certainly up until 0600 local S9, 8 and 35 are being worked by the same people, so it wouldn't be saving the S8/35 controller any R/T, but would certainly reduce the workload. Only thing to consider is it's a few more track miles and they will still end at the same holding point eventually.
Hope that helps a little bit, love the thing about daylight between them. How does that work at night
