Falconeasydriver: in a word, no.
Jet_737ng, I'm sorry if this is how you feel about Dubai ATC. However, I believe that the unique melting pot that is Dubai plays a large part in the occasional tongue lashings that may or may not be administered over the RT.
Allow me to explain.
The vast majority of Dubai ATCOs (in the Tower at least) come from a background where there is generally a very high standard both trained to and expected of ATCOs and pilots alike. Whether ATCOs are from Europe, North America or Australia, we expected in our 'home' countries that all the pilots we spoke to, for example, would have at least a basic grasp of English. It is, after all, considered the international language of aviation.
We also expected pilots to possess a basic level of airmanship in order to operate safely and efficiently in and out of busy, international airports.
However, in Dubai, we are confronted with an enormous contrast with pilots and airlines operating from every corner of the globe. I would be surprised if Dubai didn't hold the title for the most eclectic and varied mix of airlines and countries represented at one airport.
So how does this impact operationally?
1. Pilots with less than basic English, and certainly less that the required minima for ICAO standards who then take up an inordinate amount of RT time as we have to baby step them through clearances and instructions.
2. Pilots who lack basic airmanship. For example, on handover from Twr to GMC immediately talking on GMC without waiting a few seconds to see if they might be stepping on another pilot or the GMC ATCO, causing extra RT transmissions on already congested frequencies. Or how about the pilots who report runway vacated when they're still rolling out after landing and are still on the runway centerline? Or even better, the ones who come to a grinding halt on the high speed runway exit with the tail centimeters clear of the runway edge then call runway clear, causing go-arounds?
3. And it's not just issues with crews. Dubai is an airport already playing significant catch up with the amount of traffic it has. The infrastructure of the airport is simply not good enough to cope with all the aircraft using it. If you've ever arrived between 6-8am and had to wait up to 45mins for a stand you'll know what I'm talking about. And is there any other airport in the world where one of it's 2 runways has to close, every week, for 2 successive afternoons for runway maintenance, whatever that means?
4. Or how about the 'home' airline who schedule all their morning departures to depart in a one hour window, then have the temerity to bitch and moan if they get delayed? They actually timetable 4 or 5 departures to go at the same time at various times of the morning, then can't understand why they pick up delays.
5. Or my particular favorite, when there are significant start up delays for whatever reason (ground congestion, flow restrictions for LVOs etc), the pilot calls ready and gets put in a queue to be advised of a significant delay then asks every 5 minutes for their number in the queue.
The above is just a couple of grumbles and bugbears that me and my colleagues have and is by no means a complete list. That's without even touching on the equipment and procedures we have to put up with and senior management who don't appear capable of standing up for the ATCOs and just pile on more and more change with more and more new equipment without even bothering to make sure it all works properly. We're still waiting for our new GMR to be fixed since its introduction last year, and I dread to think what's going on down the road for our approach colleagues and the new AT3 system.
And I'm not even going to get started on our beloved HR department who appear to exist purely to make life more difficult for the rest of us, and who's growth in numbers appears to correlate directly with the amount of work they appear to not do.
Finally 737, please remember there are always 2 sides of a coin. Have you ever visited Dubai Tower? I would bet my mortgage you haven't. In all my years here, I can count on one hand the number of groups of pilots I have seen on liaison visits to actually see what we have to deal with every day. Considering the number of pilots with Emirates and FlyDubai alone, that's a pretty damning indictment about the attitude of aircrews towards ATC.