a few queries about ZRH. Not the most inefficient airport I know in Europe.

[Fly Star]

I fly to ZRH regularly, and there are a few issues which I want to query about :
ATC slows us down very early. The other day they asked us to slow down to 210 kts when we were at BLM for RW28 at night.
Then, they asked 2000fpm minimum. We replied that with a 737 @ 210 kts, we cant do 2000fpm unless we accelerate (we were still at 31000).
The controller replied "you are too high, YOU SHOULD HAVE DESCENDED EARLIER !!!, you will need to hold". He was pretty rude actually.
We replied that we descended when ATC asked us to...
anyway the approach was messy.

Could you tell me why in ZRH controller are the rudest I have come accross in Europe. Why sometimes, we get nearly shouted at for no good reason ?

Why do they slow us down very very early. I think once I was asked to be at 160kts when we still had 50 track miles!!!
I understand that if people ahead of us are slow, we need to slow down, but if you would keep the speed up for everybody until later, it would make life easier for everybody. A jet aircraft doesn't descend very well at slow speed. Therefore very often we are high in Kloten, because we are slowed down too early.
Why doing that? I fly to other airport with several RW and we don't get that kind of problems. Only in ZRH...

About the noise issue : Why is OK to fly over the german territory at night for the southerly RW, but it is unacceptable to fly over the south of the airport, over Swiss territory? Is it OK to be noisy over germany, but not in Switzerland?

We fly to ZRH a lot, and we don't like it. I dont know any pilot in my company who likes ZRH... Could someone explain me the logic behind the way it is controlled? Or other pilot's experiences? Maybe I am the only one having problems there?

:cool:

[Few Cloudy]

A lot of points there - just on one of them "You should have descended earlier" - there are some heights on the Jepp out around the french border and just after it, marked as minimum FLs. However you want to try to hit those on the nose because thereafter anything can happen - short direct approach or holding - "S" approach etc.

It is a terribly complicated ATC environment around there, with N/S and E/W airways traffic - climbing and in descent, as well as the ZRH traffic. Add to that the Black Forest farmers complaining about noise (largely subjective at idle and fairly high compared to the real noise over Zuerich when configured and on stabilised final at lower Alt) and an impossible runway system and you get a recipe for delays and short-term plan changes.

As for rude - the English spoken by the German Swiss is better than in a lot of places but once they get away from standard terminology they get into an imprecise rough form of the Albionic language. Forms of sentence which make Englishmen cringe are often the fastest approximation to what the guy would be trying to say in German - it comes over as rude I agree. Having lived in the area for half my life, I don't notice it so much these days - probably getting the same myself!

[987654]

Fly Star
If you really were at FL310 over BLM there was good reason for the controller to shout at you. Ever heared of a proper descent planning? It is not the controllers duty to get you down on time (especially not the frenchies). Why not simply ask for an early descent and you are out of any trouble.
As for the speed requirements. Look at the airspace available to vector traffic and you will find the answer yourself (well maybe not, but then you should stop flying anyway). And I really doubt that 160KTS at 50 miles story.

Sorry for being rude myself now. But I have rarely read such a f****sh and non-professional thread for a long time!

[ZRH]

The usual level at BLM is around FL150-FL170 for inbound Zürich. Now you obviously calculated more trackmiles for RWY28 and stayed up high. There is no space to vector traffic if extra trackmiles are required, and tfc from BLM has to be sequenced with the tfc from the north, east,south and west. So you are very seldom the only aircraft around. If you are the only bloke then the speeds dont matter either making it easier for you to loose the altitude. IF youre the only one!!!
Another thing to remember is that RWY28 has no high-speed turn offs which requires larger spacing on final..could be another reason why youre reduced early.
The rest of the time the politicians decide how and where and what we're allowed to do. Nothing much we can do about that, since skyguide or the individual controller can be fined 20 000 swiss francs if they break one of the politicians rules like letting an aircraft depart 1 minute too early or letting an aircraft land 1 minute too late!!! So were all in it together and believe me, we are trying our best, even if some of our colleagues are not.

[maxalt]

Always remember hearing an old crusty yank skipper being told (sternly) by LSZH to reduce to 230kts and expedite descent. He shot right back 'Hey listen buddy...we can go down, or we can slow down, now which do you want'.:D

I have a similiar niggle with the Germans.
Why do airports like Dusseldorf like to keep the landing runway a 'secret' until the last possible moment?

The Dutch add atwist to this in Amsterdam by telling you on ATIS that its one runway and then vectoring you to a different one! :{

Why can't everywhere be like LHR......:ok:

[G Zip]

I regularly operate A319/320 into ZRH. Apparently the local political issues viz cross-border noise have resulted in rigorous ATC quota constraints from the overlapping airspace to the N of ZRH. This even drives the use of RW28! Perhaps the mid-air last year didn't help much either but good ATC liaison requires us to be ahead of the energy management game whether it's 14 or 28 landing and appreciate that the guy/gal on the other end of the mic is literally in a very tight corner. RILAX is a well-named arrival point free of such constraints out on the other side of ZRH! From BLM the decelerating plateaus followed by Terrain/ROD-limited speeds are normal for us. Lived in Germany for a few years myself so can sympathise with the tonal misunderstandings of Deutsch-English in a hurry. So when there's an 80kt T/W in the initial descent and the Anti-Ice has jacked up your idle thrust beware - unlike the (brilliant) ATC at LHR, they do not have the space to zig-zag...:ok:

[Bart Bandy]

Things seem to have changed a bit in Zurich since I used to go there regularly. 10 years ago you could expect to be instructed by ZRH radar to maintain 220 knots to a 4 mile final and if you demured they would threaten to take you out of the sequence.
I seem to recall that a delegation of UK operators went out there to explain it to them as it was obvious at the time that the controllers had very little appreciation of the performance characteristics of jet transports. If they are doing the opposite these days perhaps they have taken the earlier commments too much to heart.
One Brit who declined to maintain MMo to the marker was told(allegedly) 'You must maintain your present speed to 4 miles as the SwissAir behind is catching you up' To which Nigel replied
'Well,tell SwissAir to slow down,then!' A deafening silence ensued.
Those who were there got the distinct impression that this had never occured to the cotroller.

[Few Cloudy]

Bandy - your story is unbelieveable.

No group of Brits went to Zürich to "explain Jet ops" to ATC. ATC did not request 220kts to 4 miles.

The "home" airline did chat to ATC when they started requesting up to 180kts to 4 dme a while back.

Jets have been operating into and from ZRH for as long as anywhere else - back to the DC-8 and Coronado days. 10 years ago, by the way, 4 miles DME wasn't an issue. There was a marker.

reread my original post and found it to be very rude - so edited...:hmm:

[Fly Star]

Thanks ZRH for the info.
I understand that there isn't much airspace to play with... This explains the slower speed than usual in the TMA.

As for 987654,
I didn't want to be rude. But If we were very high on BLM, was because we had been refused descent on numerous occasions by French ATC + big TWC.
Then we were given a clearance, like :
"descent FL150, speed 210kts".
Then, we heard : "turn right xxx degrees, 2000 fpm min".
The heading was taking us to a base position for RW28 avoiding ZUE. So I think they wanted to squeeze us quick on RW28, but we were a bit high for that. That is when we suggested to increase speed to lose height... We then got the comment from ATC :
"you are too high, YOU SHOULD HAVE DESCENDED EARLIER !!!, you will need to hold".
We didn't hold, we were sent up North to intercept a track to ZUE and then onto the Approach. We were asked to reduce speed to 160 shortly after the vectoring. And final approach speed with about 15 track miles. We were 3 miles behind another trafic. That was to put things a bit more straight.

I understand the German/English language issue. It can makes some statements sound rude without intention...

But still, when you are asked to slow down and go down, it is not possible. It is one or the other...
And still, sometimes we feel shouted out in ZRH for no good reason.
I suppose the airport trafic is going to get quieter with the new restructuring process started by SWISS... And I know as a fact that Mulhouse/Basle airport is eyed by a few operators as a replacement for ZRH which is "apparently" too congested...
All I know, I fly to airports which have a lot more trafic, and it seems smoother and easier to get in than in ZRH.
Maybe, because of a small airspace in a small country !! ;)

[N380UA]

All ZRH bound traffic

I can’t talk for Skyguide though I’m sure that any perceived rudeness is not intentional.
In terms of approach procedures and noise abatement however I can say that we are trying our outmost possible to get a decent thing going here.

Our most difficult task, this may sound somewhat wired, is to get the politicians – that is the regional “county”, state, national and even international - to understand flight operations.

Though I believe that they very well understand it by now, they’re selling Harry Potter (magic and horror) stories to their constituencies. And the keyword is constituency in all this mess.

ZRH is probably one of the most politicised airports in Europe at the time though I understand that other have their share of headaches too.

So politics is our limiting factor driven by morons building houses DIRECTLY under a 1 mile final. I really can’t do anything at the moment to improve the situation other then say that we won’t give up (which gets more difficult by the day I must say)

[springbok449]

Lots of things going on in the background at ZRH, read in the French Swiss press last week of ZRH trying to agree a deal with the Germans regarding arrivals from the north...
The Germans are trying to force all A/C to land on 28 which apparently is impossible for a heavy jet to do on a wet and contaminated RWY which in turn would mean that the heavies would have to divert to Basle causing lots of hassle and costing money.
there was another point as the Germans said to ZRH well you have RWY 32 and 34 to use when its not good weather but apparently that is not an option to the Swiss as it means over flying the town of Zurich.
The next 18 months will be interesting not only for ZRH airport but for Swiss too...