When we log on to YMMM, my standing joke to the other pilot is, 'What is the definition of a nanosecond?' Answer, 'The time span between logging on and MEL hassling you for your position report' (usually while you are just trying to send it, and your system gets locked up with the multiple messages).
After many years of international flying, I would describe Australian ATC as 'adequate but anal'. I rate it in the middle of the pack, that has the Brits and the Americans at the top followed by Western Europe.
Other observations of the bottom of the pile: India: improving, but could hardly have gotten any worse. China: 'Bizarro World'. Nothing more to be said. Burma/Bangladesh: just caught up with the 1960s. Most of south and east Asia except for the Philippines: actually quite good considering the amount of traffic they handle, crap weather, English not first language, and terrain in many cases that makes Mt. Kosciusko look like a speed hump. Our dispatchers could save an entire forest by putting on the NOTAMs what aids are serviceable in the Philippines instead of what is not; but even so, the traffic density at Manila sometimes makes Melbourne or Sydney look like a country fly-in, and they cope.
Many Aussie ATCOs are excellent to deal with, but what is it with our separation standards? It just seems that many other countries seem to do far more with less, in much more challenging environments, and appear to achieve the same degree of safety.
Last edited by Captain Dart; 15th Sep 2016 at 00:43.