Quick query for ATCOs working in Class D, I was out flying recently with a colleague routeing from Newtownards through Belfast and up towards Portrush. Beautiful day, CAVOK with not much traffic around. We requested a zone transit from Belfast City which we got, we were passed traffic information on a A319 on a 4 mile final runway 22 and I heard the controller passing traffic information to the A319 about us, we were visual with the landing traffic and the controller simply let us continue across the zone - no fuss, no drama, we passed behind the A319 and once through the final approach we were transferred to Aldergrove and were told they had our details. At this stage we were tracking towards Glengormley hoping for a zone transit from Aldergrove to head towards Portrush.
On first contact with Aldergrove we were asked to pass full details and intentions, somewhat surprised we went through the spiel anyway and were then told there was traffic inbound for runway 25 and to remain outside the zone. This we duly did but within a short time we became visual with an Easyjet on our right hand side at least 1000ft above, we reported visual with this traffic to the controller hoping for a transit but were told that we weren`t separated from the Easyjet and a zone transit was not available. my colleague confirmed we were VFR and good visual but there was still no transit forthcoming.
We continued outside Aldergrove airspace, there were no further inbounds and nothing that I could see to prevent transit.
Do Aldergrove now separate VFR against IFR traffic? Why?
