Avman, I am afraid in this instance you are so far off the mark it’s not funny!
I’ll be a bit more specific about my complaints rather than including all of Spanish ATC. Possibly I have been into the following places more often than a lot of other Spanish destinations but, let’s get this on record. For years now, the standard of ATC displayed, at very regular intervals, at the following airports, is an absolute embarrassment to your profession. I include the approach control for LPA, TFS, PMI, IBZ, AGP and GRO.
Approaching each of these airports I have on many occasions been the recipient of the instruction to reduce speed from as far away as 70 miles on one occasion (from 320 kts to 270, 250 and finally 220 while still 30 miles from the airport), in order to allow some little Binter turboprop to get on the ground in front of our 767. As Scallywag intimated, in almost every case, if we had been allowed to follow our normal profile of approach we would not only have landed without hindering said Binter, we would have been parked and offloading our passengers before he reached short finals.
This is not an exaggeration. It has to be seen to be believed I know, but it is seen every single day by every foreign operator into these, and possibly other Spanish, airports. As I said, these guys are a total embarrassment to the ATC profession, plain and simple. Some of the controlling I have seen by them would simply not be believed by people such as yourself Avman.
To the west I have landed at LAS and to the east at AKL and numerous places in between. I have never, ever come across controlling even remotely as blatantly nationalistic as seen in the environs of the above airports. The cost in wasted fuel alone must be incredible. One thing that has to be said though, is that the pilots of said turboprops are usually just as culpable and as big an embarrassment to our profession!
BTW Anchorman, sorry but you really do not know what we are talking about. Getting bypassed or held on taxi is the very least of the problems these comedians give us.
Has anybody got any ideas about how to get this to change?