Originally Posted by
le Pingouin
To clarify this particular point - tonight I happened to talk to the en-route controller you mentioned. His comment about tower staffing was specifically in relation to LAHSO. Due to the review of LAHSO after the double go-around we had a while back we now have much stricter rules relating to the manning of various positions (tower, TMA, en-route and supervisors) before we can use LAHSO. This basically means day time staffing levels.
For better or worse our bean counters don't like having staffing above what is needed to handle "the usual" so at 2200 the numbers are well and truly winding down. Anything more ain't going to happen unless your bean counters demand it. And pay for it.
Thanks for the heads up on that.
As pilots we don't see the big picture and don't understand what the delays may be caused by. What we do see sometimes though is minimum separation and we see that as a good thing but other times we get slowed right down and the closest aircraft may be 15 miles ahead and we don't understand how this occurs and why we had to slow down so much, disregarding aircraft categories.
What sort of separation do you use on approach for aircraft of the same category?
Does it increase the workload when you have to separate aircraft of different categories?
Thanks.