It was only a couple of weeks ago that I was flying into Ibiza in a 737. With about 80 odd track miles to go we were requested to slow to minimum clean speed and then further, so we were extending flaps with about 40 miles to go.
Shortly after that and from behind my left shoulder appeared a turbo prop. Ah ha says I to my faithful FO, bet you that's a Spanish aircraft going to Ibiza. So continued the ridiculously slow and inefficient arrival as we were very slowly overhauled, we even had to be extended on to a 20 mile final because, bless it, the turbo prop simply wasn't fast enough and lo and behold after we landed what did we spot?
Yes, a Spanish turbo prop taxying in.
All you people who can excuse the downright unprofessional behaviour of Spanish ATC because it's too difficult to organise the heavy flow of traffic blah blah need to take your heads out of your bottoms and realise that not everywhere is as busy as you think, for instance two aircraft arriving at a Spanish island is easy to reorganise init.
Even though we were well ahead and much faster were we surprised that they got priority? No. Just. Resigned to the fact that we wasted about 20 minutes and 400kgs of fuel just so a national airliner could land first.
Are you surprised?
Last edited by Lord Spandex Masher; 25th Oct 2013 at 12:28.