and that was movement rates at airfields like LHR are decided not by ATC but by a Scheduling Committee.
I don't give a
what the Scheduling committee think is possible.
I don't tell the ATCO to
off I just fly the plane safely and ignore unsafe requests.
And speaking to ops won't change anything. You get given your slots and that's the end of it. If you don't want them someone else will take them.
We had a route which we arrived at the same time as 6 long haul heavys. Quite rightly ATC would bunch them together so they could use less airspace due vortex separation. So that gave us 10mins at least delay. So the flight was always late onto stand. The pilots said move the departure forward by 10 mins and it will be sorted. Months went by of emails about pax complaints missing there connections due to being late. Then eventually the season change came and we moved the departure time forward and got in ahead of the heavys. Then the complaints started streaming in about the flight leaving to early. Because this meant some public transport option wasn't available. So they moved the time to +10 original and the complaints started again that the route wasn't fit for purpose because they couldn't make the connections.
So you can't win, so best just to stay safe and develop thick skin and pretend that your trying to make the impossible work. ATC will blame the pilots and the pilots will blame ATC and the world will continue to turn hopefully with everyone staying on the runway with an occasional go-around.
Even if pilots/ATCO's all did go into that grey area of just on the limits some tosser would just decide that everything is working so we can fit an extra couple more in.
Even after months and months of a cunning plan not working the bean counters and marketing people will just turn deaf ears to the poor sods that have to try and implement there ideas.
who is culpable if an ATCO says "vacate at XX" and the aircraft leaves the paved surface?
The Captain, its always the Captains responsibility to ensure the safety of the aircraft.