Psycho gave you a reasonable response with the caveat that he is not a radar controller in the Centre.
Suggest you grab a copy of Crew News from a few months back where the issue of arrival sequencing was dealt with in detail in one of the articles.
To supplement a few of the other topics raised by an earlier poster:
why force inbound planes to descend 10nm from DOTMI, "when ready" omitted when no one is crossing the outbound corridor?
Please don't confuse the DOTMI corridor (you used the term, so I presume you know about it) which we use for lower level crossing traffic (below F260) with the reason for your early descent.
Generally the reason would be due to convergence of A1 traffic at MAGOG at the same level (I'm willing to bet it's when you are normally at F320?). While it may seem the simple solution is just descend the ELATO traffic earlier, often thats not possible due to other traffic and getting you stepped the wrong way would stuff up the sequence.
why all the "unrestricted"?
See the thread on "HK ATC ---/5000B"
I think I explained it pretty clearly there.
Its being fixed as we speak but at least 2 AIRAC cycles (56 days) are required for promulgation to the coders.
why S6C, and not S6A, nevermind the good old slam dunk with "expect track miles" during quiet hours?
The default track is the S6A. If delay of around 3-4 minutes or more is required, then the normal practice is to give the S6C. It is approximately 4 minutes longer and is supposed to give you some sort of predictability to manage your profile rather than wandering around seemingly aimlessly on vectors. If we gave you the S6A then told you to head 200 from SIERA would you be happier??
The "slam dunk" still happens during "quiet' times. I guess thats why you don't see it as much now. With around 1100 flights a day now, there are few "quiet" hours. Besides, the slam dunk probably resulted in the "too high/too fast" and the "yes we can make it/no we can't, can we have an orbit on final?" one too many times for both your and our Managements' liking.
why climb "TO" FL? why descend "TO" FL? ("to" added)
why climb "" ft? why descend "" ft? ("to" omitted)
The former is ICAO as Psycho says. The latter is incorrect and should not be used.
There seem to be some who find ambiguilty where there is none.
If you understand the ICAO phraseology and realize that the word "TO" is part of the phrase, you cannot confuse the level given or whether the controller meant TO, TWO or TOO.
why runway change when wind VBR? creating a huge queue consequently push back delay
I think Psycho forgot to mention that particularly during summer months, a certain amount of forecasting is going on by the Tower guys to predict the sea breeze effect as it comes and goes in the late morning and early evening. There is nothing worse than waiting for it to completely push through with resultant 10 kt tailwind and multiple go-arounds and rejected line-ups before deciding to switch.
As for the question on pushbacks- he's the expert on that and really you should be asking AA why they continue to design terminals that cause multiple bays to be blocked when pushbacks occur.
why would the third runway increase TKOF/LDG movements when the bottleneck is at base leg
Whether its through PRD airspace redesign or advances in PBN, we should be able to achieve independent base legs. (either from opposite sides or the same side). Independent parallel approaches to the outer runways will be feasible and independent departures from the south and centre runways, with 15 degrees divergence will be as per standard ICAO.
The aptly named "glass wall" certainly has a terrible effect on efficiency, in terms of handling, but in reality it is not an airport capacity constraint.