Request vs Require.
Regarding departure order. ATCs like pilots are paid to make use of their best judgement. Otherwise you may as well stick a traffic light at the threshold.
All things being equal, he who is ready at the holding point goes first. If in the controllers judgement, they can increase the runway utilisation by massaging the departure sequence without significant penalty to others they will. Please don't take it personally.
Like someone else said. "Ready is ready" it's not the arbiter of the sequence.
Note: Some people have developed a habit of seeing a large queue and calling ready miles back from the holding point to presumably lock in their departure order. Be aware that the tower controller won't have your strip yet, as its is still with the ground controller, and can't mark it as ready. If their memory is as bad as mine, they'll forget if you called ready or not because they're busy, and there are 15 aircraft ahead of you.
On the original issue, does anyone here know why Cobham won't accept RWY14 during converging operations at YBBN. At the airport capacity meeting the chief pilot when asked just said "we won't be using it, and that's that."
If RWY01 were to close, would they divert or land on 14?
Edit: by Cobham I mean their B717 operations.
Last edited by 1Charlie; 28th Jan 2015 at 03:40.