There is no avoiding the fact that if the track was 'inhibited' and therefore 'black' as you say, and it was in that state for 30 minutes on a busy airway, then that is bad form by the individual controllers and therefore ASA as a company - regardless of the reason. You don't operate as an ATC with the attitude of 'don't worry TCAS will catch it' as we all know - sometimes TCAS don't work. I would call it luck that there was no loss of separation/airprox event.
To suggest that a controller would not be scanning for 'black tracks' is ludicrous. Everyone knows you always scan for everything all the time. ATC 101 would have taught you that. (if the track was filtered out from the display - well that is a different issue).
Last edited by Baileys; 5th Oct 2012 at 02:12.