That’s not what megan asked, le P. But the theme of your and CM’s recent posts is clear: There’s a bunch of stuff that you don’t do.
A result is that the system operates counter-intuitively. Counter-intuitive systems encourage errors.
Intuitively, you’d believe that a flight information service that unilaterally provides information would provide the most important stuff as a priority. But noooo. At time X it can unilaterally provide information Q. At time Y it can unilaterally provide information R. At time Z it can remain silent on information S. Information S could be operationally more important than information Q and R.
The ‘excuse’ is that if you ask for it, you’ll get it, and you’re responsible for asking for it. The people in that stovepipe with their little bowl of rice are not obliged to do otherwise.
But the person on the receiving end is lulled into a false sense of security. They are being told some stuff. It doesn’t make sense that other stuff that could be as or more important can be withheld.
Why bother unilaterally telling me anything, if some important stuff can be withheld as a consequence of ‘the rules’? Better not to lull me into a false sense of security, and instead make it clear that nothing is going to be provided unilaterally and that I have to request everything.
You file a plan with a SARTIME (private jolly) for a flight departing from or terminating at an aerodrome in Class C airspace. Intuitively, you’d believe that if you never depart, the SARTIME would never be ‘active’. But noooo, the SARTIME is active in a different stovepipe of the system.
So then the SARTIME expires and someone’s looking for you. Intuitively, you’d think they’d call the control tower for the aerodrome in Class C airspace nominated as the departure or arrival aerodrome in your filed flight plan, to find out whether you actually departed (or actually arrived, if that was your destination). But noooo. ATC’s stovepipe and little bowl of rice doesn’t extend to dealing with this trivia.
Why am I referring to SARTIMEs about private jollies? Their treatment in the system is analogous to megan’s questions about the nominated alternate(s). Intuitively, you’d believe that the ATC system would be aware of the alternate(s) nominated in a submitted flight plan, and therefore there’d be a responsibility to unilaterally inform you of new information about the alternate(s). But noooo. It’s not this stovepipe’s responsibility - the rice bowl’s too small.
You might wonder why these counter-intuitive circumstances can continue to exist, and why so much effort is exerted to explain what won’t be done do for you.
It’s industrial relations.
Stove pipes and little rice bowls, all jealously and hungrily protected.
And I stress again that I’m not criticising individuals. The problem is the busted system in which they have to work.