A strange discussion, indeed. It never came into my mind that a FPL would be passed to the airfield. I always assumed it is my duty as a pilot to make sure DEST and ALT are open to public traffic or file PPR by my own. ATC was only relevant for me for the flight phase, but neither APR nor DEP. It also happened not once, but more often that I had to come back to RADAR because TWR did not respond, so I never thought RADAR give something on airport ops. I rely on ATC to organize airport options only in case of emergency and they always helped me out, but did never expect to do something on ordinary ALT ???