Change needed in North American ATC
After reading about the recent Alaska Airlines Taxiway Tango incident in KSEA, a few issues came to mind.
I have flown for years under the EASA license in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. I have also flow airliners for years in North America with the FAA license. I am a dual citizen and I have been afforded the opportunity to learn from different ATCs around the world.
To be quite honest, I am a bit concerned with the N. American ATC and its refusal to adapt to ICAO practices and standards. I always get a laugh when going into KLAX and there are several aircraft lined up on final and the controller says in a rushed manner, "ok you are number 3 and your following a B737 which is on a base turn at your 2'oclock position and you are cleared to land. I'm sorry, but this is simply amateur and asking for a serious accident in the future. It seems like you can be 30 miles from the airport and number 15 to land and they will issue a landing clearance. This combined with a culture of "unload the liability" onto the pilot by constantly "HARASSING" them about calling the preceding aircraft in order to dump a visual approach onto the pilot is ridiculous. How is it that an airport such as Frankfurt which handles an immense number of airplanes in often sub-par weather, can be so much more professional and efficient than let's say, San Francisco....even on a clear day?
Back to the Alaska Airlines Tango incident; I am going to level half the blame with the amateur ATC in this part of the world. Some of you may ask yourselves, "well how could the ATC there be worse than a typical African ATC." The answer is quite simple, in Africa there is often no radar and the pilot is following exact prescribed routes via the Jeppesen approach chart, coupled with a common frequency where the pilots are speaking to one another. In America, the ATC is often the biggest threat by directing air traffic in an unsafe and unprofessional manner.
I am not nationalistic toward any side of the Atlantic, I am simply calling it how I see it.
Major ATCs of the world are in dire need of an learning exchange program. I am certain there are positive techniques that could be learned from each culture. North America's refusal to adapt to more professional and safe practices will unfortunately cause more incidents/accidents in the future. The American controllers really need to spend a year split between London and Frankfurt to gain valuable knowledge on how to operate a large volume of traffic in often congested airspace.