No Joy in Zurich
Maybe it's just me, but I fly into Zurich quite a lot, and the place really is poor. The arrival from BLM is guaranteed to get you high every time, especially with a strong wind where you need speedbrakes from FL240 to about 4000 feet, you always hold at Ekrit while they let the Swiss aircraft in ahead of you; and in the evenings they use the VOR/DME to Runway 28 and slow you back to 180 knots at 50 miles, even when it seems not too busy. Your landing clearance comes at the last minute while they scuttle several Swiss aircraft across the runway, but we always have to wait while we wish to cross.If you are lucky enough to get the ILS, they drop you onto it at the last second. Although you are not allowed over Southern Germany to land on 14 or 16, it seems they don't mind you taking off on Runway 32 or 34, thereby creating a lot more noise. Then, when finally on the ground, very nonstandard phraseology like we got yesterday. You would have thought they would be trying to do it even safer bearing in mind their recent history, but I think the ATC there is just poor. Anyone else got any opinions?