I'm an ATCO, not a pilot, I don't fly regularly over Europe in the cockpit except on the occasional familiarisation flight. I hear stories about preferential treatment all over the world and I can not say whether they are true or not.
I have worked with Spanish and French ATC in the past and all the people I have met working in those ATM environments have been consummate professionals. However, I have heard stories about events in those countries, within training regimes for example, which are beyond anything my or (I believe) any of my colleagues in the UK's professionalism would allow. Therefore I have mixed feelings on how crews may or may not be treated down route. I do know that their worlds are very different from ours, especially politically.
Despite that my overarching opinion on this stems from my own experience. I work at a busy, complex international airport with a mix of nationalities flying. I am not biased. I make my decisions on the basis of what is best for the overall traffic flow at all times. Despite this I have been accused,
on the RTF, of being biased to our local carrier, more than once, at different airports I have worked at. The first time the accusation came from the airline that, the second time I was accused of helping.
With a local carrier making up around 50% of the traffic on the ground for departure there is, in very simplistic terms, a 50% chance that one of those aircraft is on the route I need to best serve the capacity of the runway. If you are 1 of 10 at the hold there is only a 10% chance it's you on that route. It will, more often than not, look like I am
choosing the base airline ahead of you.
In an busy approach environment such as Heathrow, which I don't work and haven't in the past, I understand directly from colleagues that it would be often be career suicide to attempt favouritism, as an overload would quite often result.
kcockayne as you say you are not a pilot and clearly have f'all idea of what goes on over the rest of Europe. Hence your amusement is clearly due to your own naivety and 'misunderstanding'.
kcockayne is a professional ATCO with an opinion on this matter and I find it extremely distasteful that as a pilot you are happy to come into this forum and speak like this. His opinion matters, as does mine, as does yours. Perhaps you should express yours in a more professional manner in the future, or we'll simply assume that your opinion of European ATCOs is a manifestation of you judging us by your own standards.