A QUESTION FROM AIR CANADA
 

I had the good luck this past weekend to fly up front on an Air Canada A-330. While up front another passenger came onto the flight deck. It turned out that this man was an air traffic controller from Canada. He and the pilot got into a discussion about what the pilot considered to be an unsafe condition at LHR. It seems that the controllers would not give an ATC clearance until the plane was being pushed back. This meant that the First Officer had to set the proper coordinates into the flight control computer and the pilot could not cross check the FOs input because he was involved in starting the engines and taking care of other business. The pilot stated that he questioned personnel from LHR ATC and they did not respond. He feels that this practice is unsafe and I would well imagine that other pilots feel the same. I told him about these threads on PPRuNe stating that he should ask this question. Since I didn’t see any postings from him I thought I would ask the question for him.

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The Cat

Hi LZ,

This assertion from the AC pilot is incorrect. The start up approval, ATC clearance, CTOT and any airfield delay is given on the Ground Movement Planning (Heathrow Delivery) frequency of 121.97. Only then is the aircraft transferred to the appropriate GMC frequency for push back authorisation. Therefore no ATC instructions should interfere with the safe operation of the aircraft. ATC route clearance is only given at a later stage if there is a re-route, or if the flight plan details are not available in the host computer for some reason. I also know of no dialogue between ATC EGLL and AC Operations concerning this subject. Perhaps someone from Air Canada would like to clarify the company's concerns.

Well, I can't speak for AIR CANADA or any operational concerns that the company may or may not have. I can only speak for myself as an A.C. B-767 captain who has been a frequent user of LHR and other U.K. ATCO services since the '70s. This sounds like a non-issue to me. The system works very well.

We call for start-up, we get our clearance, the SID altitude is set and the pre-loaded SID route confirmed by both or all 3 pilots in such cases. We change frequencies, request push and start.....and away we go.

It works the same way all the time, except of course if there's a slot delay, which occasionally happens and which we usually have prior knowledge of.

It's an excellent system that is predictable and works very well. Don't see any 'safety' related issue there. IMHO, of course.