Air Asia Indonesia Lost Contact from Surabaya to Singapore

[Ian W]

Originally Posted by mcloaked

An interesting news article:

AirAsia flight QZ8501: Crash highlights perils of South-east Asia's crowded skies - South-east Asia News & Top Stories - The Straits Times

Ask for a higher level on the Atlantic you will get a similar 'UNABLE DUE TRAFFIC' response. Then the article segways from that into apparently trying to blame ATC for the incident. Looking at the surveillance pictures showing the amount of traffic around 8501 - it takes a fair amount of hyperbole to call the airspace 'busy'.

As pointed out multiple times ATC has to meet separation standards that are enforced (often by automation 'snitch'ing to supervisors) Unless the flight crew states this is an urgent request to avoid weather, then the request will be treated as routine, so you will need to standby while the controller coordinates the level change with other sectors and the next air traffic unit. As I have said before 'communicate' in time can reduce pressure on 'aviate' later. If concerned take the weather avoidance then tell ATC what you are doing. Ideally do it into a space in the TCAS traffic picture . You have to balance the risk of the weather against the risk of loss of separation.