It must be stressful to be scared of loosing your job for a minor issue like a few kts.
Not really in fact, I know the rules and you just ignore any expedite requests and go to those SOP limits or a speed which is safe for the conditions.
There is also maintence reasons as well. You go through less tyres and the steering maintence cost has dropped significantly.
Since they brought the SOP in they haven't had a single off road event. Its a medium sized EU operator. I believe it was due to an incident where it was a major factor.
After the initial getting used to it frustration its actually pretty sensible. The number of times I had my arse twitch with wondering if we were going to stay on the black stuff in previous jobs while trying to expedite to help out mostly in the RHS. I am quite happy to comply with the SOP. Its already saved my bacon once when the steering system decided to go on strike and give me a hard full right turn.
Managed to keep on the black stuff any faster, and I would have been reading about myself on pprune with a nose wheel in the muck at AMS.
Just thinking about the regular airports I operate into and if I know where the tower is....