It must be frustrating when you are refused a transit due to 1 pending IFR departure but that is an individual unit and controller problem.
I don't want to stray too far from the original problem here. I was not denied access due to "
1 pending IFR departure"; I was denied access when there were no IFR departures for at least the next 2½ hours because LC was closed.
I am sorry, but that gives the lie to all the comments about IATA, CAT, importance of flights, schedules, slot times, costs of MAs, danger to IFR flights and so on.
NATS stopped me going into pretty much empty airspace (according to what I could see on TCAS and visually there was one other aircraft in the zone.)
The problem was that the controller was controlling a lot of other things and had been instructed not to take pop-up traffic so as not to get overloaded.
So the rest of it, including the "
who pays?" arguments are interesting but belong in another thread.
Though there is the one interesting question as to who should pay for Class D airspace when the airport is closed. In most countries the controller switches on an autoresponder to say that the zone is Class G and that he or she has gone home to a well-deserved cup of Horlicks.
But I do understand that the Security Services want a Known Environment over London even when LC is closed. Who should pay for that?
The obvious answer would be the Home Office, but I can't see why it should be LC, LC's users or GA VFR users.