Suspension of conditional clearances - Glasgow ATC trial
 

For over six months Glasgow ATC has been conducting a trial, whereby conditional clearances cannot be issued to a/c or vehicles wishing to enter or cross the runway. Although there has been a lot of debate about the merits of this trial on unit, there appears to have been very little pilot feedback. Do any pilots out there wish to comment on the trial, or express their opinion (either positive or negative)? Are there any ATCOs who have participated in a similar trial who could add to the debate? Of particular interest...

* Is it preferable for pilots to be given a conditional line-up clearance with a landing a/c still on final, or to be told to "hold at A1" and lined up once the a/c has landed? Is there any real difference in terms of situational awareness/coming to a complete standstill at the holding point/final checks etc?

*How do pilots feel about instructions to enter the runway being given as they start their take off roll or are in the flare? Is this potential distraction mitigated by pre-fixing such instructions with a holding point, eg "At A1, line-up and wait"?

*For a queue of a/c waiting to depart...during the trial we can only clear you to line-up when the a/c ahead is rolling or airborne. Does this have any impact?

The trial has thus far been conducted during a period of unusually quiet traffic. It is due to continue throughout the summer, and will no doubt become a permanent procedure if it is deemed to be "safer" than the alternative. In the interests of a fair trial, would pilots please consider expressing their opinions either on this forum, through their ops department or directly to Glasgow ATC. Any opinions on potential safety impact, either positive or negative, would be hugely valuable.

Thank you in advance

Grim

I used to be one of those who used conditionals on a regular basis but we stopped using them over a year ago and quite frankly, it hasn't made any difference. The operation is no slower and no more difficult as a result.

Does such a trial reduce runway incursions? I'm not convinced, but obviously someone somewhere does. Better off with a 24/7 ring of red.

Manchester ran a trial a few years ago, you could look at those stats and comments.

louby

Who comes up with these ideas? The madness seems to be spreading too. Everywhere we look the rules are weighted in favour of getting rid of flexibilty and delaying traffic - it really does delay traffic on a runway working near capacity. At the same time the traffic keeps coming. Something has to give. How are we supposed to move the traffic with our hands being tied ever further behind our backs?

Conditional clearance are safe if they are used properly. They have also saved my bacon on a number of occasions - where the situational awareness that they afford has mitigated against errors in reporting runway entry point. I can not remember any time that an appropriate conditional clearance has contributed to an incident.

I wish the nats department of silly ideas would stop meddling.

100% with Dan Dare on this one. :D

<<Who comes up with these ideas?>>

In my modest experience, people who have done little or no work at the coal face. Waaaay back a senior man at Heathrow decreed that it was unsafe to launch northbound traffic off the southerly runway whilst landing traffic on the northerly runway was inside the outer marker (4 DME). This edict was issued late one Friday afternoon (like several of his similarly daft ideas) and the airfield almost ground to a halt. The instruction was cancelled very shortly thereafter!!!

PS How did we get away with using conditional clearances for so many years without problems?

On a fam flight from Heathrow one day, I listened to Graham C issuing line ups involving at least 6 if not more conditionals; I don't see how they can operate without them. I'd like to be able to use them as a FISO as it would mean I could get departures away more efficiently when the visual circuit is busy, but as they're classed as clearances, I can't.

Heathrow is limited now to only 1 conditional clearance at a time.. and we work like that without a problem - although I believe there was an initial flurry of opposition to the idea when it was first brought in!

I'd love to be able to go back to multiple conditionals. Helps a great deal with R/T management.

Good thing we have ACE and other teams consisting of controllers and pilots at our field, and also frequent formal and informal meetings with pilots. General consensus here on both sides is favouring conditional clearances.

taxied out in Zrh yesterday morning, changed to tower and was given my line up behind a swiss Rj on the other taxi way. we were number six and everyone had a clearance and new how long it would take and the aircraft they were following. No problems with it and worked really well, they were operating three runways and we were on 28 as a departures only runway with 34 departures (crossing 28) and 14 landings (independent).

In terms of GLA i`m afraid i had not noticed! but i`d rather get a line up after the next landing ***** etc as it allows me to be ready from when i`m on the runway not getting ready as i`m taxiing on to it. not a big time difference but enough to be able to be ready immediate with the power standing up as you speak to still having the last of the checks being read with a slow taxi lineup after being cleared.

Being told to line up after means you have to look and see, and find that traffic, just being told to line up may mean a quick scan of final and tcas and may miss something.

Thanks for the comments everyone, really appreciate your input.

I get the feeling that conditional clearances have been deemed "unsafe" by the powers that be, and unless there is a body of evidence to the contrary then we will no longer be able to use them...at Glasgow. And yet a pilot flying from Glasgow to a.n.other airfield with NATS ATC CAN be issued with a conditional clearance whilst he's there! So are they safe or unsafe....accountabilities anyone??! Obviously I'm at too low a pay grade to understand :hmm:

dhc83driver - thank you so much for responding. Think that a lot of the pilots flying out of Glasgow aren't aware of the trial, which probably means that they won't comment on it!

Are conditional clearances inherently unsafe? Is NOT issuing a conditional clearance any safer?? How do you prove a (double) negative?

Seems like we're dumbing down rather than educating, but I am willing to be proved wrong....anyone, please???:ugh:

I've had six runway incursions in a twenty year career. Every single one involved an a/c crossing a lit red stop bar without clearance to do so.

Let's ban humans then there will be no human error.

Purely from a pilot's perspective conditionals are a very good way of ATC keeping their "clients" informed about their plan. If you sit there at the holding point wondering whether ATC even remembers you exist it can get frustrating. It's particularly good if you have a student on board since it then gives them time to think about what they're about to do rather than "ohmygod I'd better move now".

NS

Total madness. If your operating your runway at or close to capacity you cannot do without conditional clearances, especially on single runway ops. A busy AIR controller, planning, coordinating with other controllers and on phone lines does not have the luxury of the time to start issuing the line up/crossing clearance at the exact right time as the landing/departing aircraft has passed. A few seconds to late will be the difference between a gap working, or a go around. And as mentioned, pilots will be wondering whats going on. A great idea for quiet airports or for looking good in a safety meeting, but ridiculous in real operations.

As a pilot flying out of Glasgow could I ask that you get onto your management and ask them to STOP THIS RIDICULOUS SCHEME.

I have noticed it myself. I always looked at Glasgow controllers as being pretty damn good and they can squeeze traffic out no problem, utilising the runway perfectly. Why this stupid idea?? It is useless! I have to now sit at the hold and wonder when I'm going to get going. I see a chap approximately 3 mile final... am I going behind him? If I am, what aircraft type or airline is it? Am I going to watch him land and THEN know whether or not I'm getting the line-up, then frantically rush the end checks whilst positioning onto the runway and being told there is more landing traffic?

This is pathetic... please can the people that introduced this 'scheme' please take it back out as soon as possible before I start going up my own ranks and build up a serious case against the scheme.

We want to exercise our great situational awareness!! We cannot do that if we do not know of traffic around us and when we are due out.

I am shocked...
 

How the h... can you people say that the use of conditional clearances not have lead to any problems?? As an air traffic controller for nearly 20 years and the leader of my airports local runway safety team (LRST) i am SO aware of why more and more airports stop using that type of clearances! Do you "best-in-the-world-pilots" really believe that the use of such clearances are stopped for no reason?? Read the incident rapport from Munich from some years back in time and maybe even you will understand that there is so much safety to win and so little efficiency to loose, that the stop in using conditional clearances is purely positive for the safety!
You guys should really be more worried about safety than being angry for being held at a holding point until the preceeding traffic has landed... I do hope your attitudes do NOT represent the majority of pilots in UK!!

harley7985... I worked at Heathrow Tower for 22 years and never experienced any problems with conditional clearances. How come they have suddenly become a problem?

I did tower for over 30 years and never had any problems with conditionals, mind you it was better phrased in those days ie 'after the departing' or 'behind the landing'; perhaps a trial with this 'old fashioned' phraseology should take place. NB I would never give a conditional to a vehicle; there's no way of knowing how competent the driver is and when we had miltary aircrew, they asked us not to do it anyway. Also as someone else said, if you are doing air and GMC combined plus vehicles, you may need to take advance actions using conditionals in order to expedite traffic; I get the impression that the people who decide on these trials don't take RTF loading onto account.

Thank you everyone for taking time out to respond

Sir Herbert...thank you so much for your comments. I agree with Lassie's response - if you feel strongly about this then please voice your concerns to the powers that be. Controller's who criticise the trial are not being listened to...we are simply deemed "uninterested in safety".

I am willing to be convinced that this is a good idea, but I am still waiting to be shown evidence that conditional clearances are unsafe. If they have been a contributory factor in incidents, then why are we bothering with trials?! If they have been proven unsafe, then ban them. If ANY clearance is not adhered to or mis-interpreted then safety is compromised...but surely this is a training/competence issue? I believe that a comprehensive scheme to educate airside vehicle drivers would do far more to prevent runway incursions than simply banning conditional clearances....

...but what do I know?!! :ugh:

I hope Spanish ATC don't read this thread and get any more crazy ideas about working to rule!

<<If they have been a contributory factor in incidents, then why are we bothering with trials?! If they have been proven unsafe, then ban them. >>

I do not believe that conditional clearances are unsafe in any way, shape or form. What may be unsafe is the way controllers issue them and crews respond to them. A conditional clearance issued correctly, with due emphasis on speed of delivery, especially to foreign crews, with careful attention to the read-back and eyes outside the tower window, should be as safe as any other ATC instruction. I was pedantic in the extreme when issuing them but I know that some controllers gabble instructions at warp speed, which is asking for trouble. Slow down.... take an extra second to issue the instruction, listen for the read-back and watch what's going on and there should be no problems..

At single runway airports, where you are at max. capacity, conditional clearances can provide a great deal of situational awareness.

As an example, if you have very tight departure gaps in a constant stream of landing traffic you might use the phrase "Behind the landing XXXX, line up and be ready immediate". This immediately implies that a degree of urgency is required on lining up and I would like to think that the aircrew then look out of the cockpit, see the stream of landings and make a quick assessment of whether they can complete their take-off checks in time. At the same time it gives a verbal heads-up to the first landing aircraft that they should not delay their exit from the runway. Finally, it gives the following landing aircraft an indication that there will be an aircraft departing before them and implies that they will probably receive a late landing clearance. It also indicates to anyone else on frequency that this is a busy airport trying to shift as much traffic as can safely be done.

Suspension of conditional clearances sounds like a knee-jerk reaction to a one-off incident where the full implications of not using them haven't been thought through properly.

Good post OTB! :ok:

We do seem to be a reactive rather than proactive business - the amount of supplements to documents, procedure changes and temporary instructions is getting silly.

Management - stop messing about with a system that works.

<<Lesson on how to suck eggs will follow>>

It strikes me that such lessons maybe necessary!

As a pilot can I ask a question? How often do your managers actually do any controlling?

Tom Peters, an American management guru, in his classic book "In Search of Excellence" says that managers need to get their "daily dose of reality". He goes on to explain that what he means by this is that they need to go down to the "shop floor" and find out what is going on and even (shock horror!) do the job themselves for a while to get back in touch with reality. It's too easy for those that sit in offices and issue crazy edicts which are not practical.

I now have a new choice of threads for your consideration.


"How often would you WANT to let one of your managers do any controlling?"

or alternatively,

"How often would you want to let one of your managers do any managing?"

fireflybob. At major units managers cannot control because they do not have the necessary validations on their licences. Unless things have changed, they are not required to maintain those validations upon promotion. When I say "managers" I mean the upper levels. At some airfields, watch managers do put an electric hat on sometimes.

Question for Glasgow Atcos
 

What is your current max. hourly runway capacity? Are you shifting over 40 per hour? Do you or airport management have a declared capacity?

As an aside and not in any way meaning to compare, I understand VHHH shifted 52 aircraft in the hour after the recent A330 incident that closed one of their two runways.

A lot is being said about operating at or near to runway capacity, which I'm not going to argue with. The point here is that Glasgow is nowhere near operating at runway capacity so these arguments are not applicable in this case.

Anyone who believes that conditional clearances have not been a contributory or causal factor in runway incursions is either burying their head in the sand, or being deliberately misleading. I can recall 2 such incidents in the recent past which simply would not have happened had a conditional clearance not been issued.

Conditional clearances are not inherently dangerous, but they do introduce an extra risk into the operation which cannot be justified by anyone who puts safety above all else. Does anyone here recall the phrase "SAFE, orderly & expeditious" in that order?

Expedition may suffer slightly if you are at or near capacity, but safe ATC isn't about just firing off as many aircraft as you possibly can, regardless. At least it hasn't been so far in my 20+ year career, and I sincerely hope it never will be.

As for operating GMC & AIR plus vehicles etc...If you're doing the work that would normally be done by 2 or more controllers, then anyone who thinks they can flash traffic around like they do when the positions are split is just an incident waiting to happen.

Ultimately the outcome of the trial isn't going to affect the way I control. I haven't used conditional clearances on the runway for years.

An interesting contribution, Mad.

Is there any way you would pass traffic information if I were sitting at the A1 hold? I'd quite like to know when I was going to go, e.g. after landing EZY A319 on 2nm final, as it can be annoying sitting at A1 not knowing when I am going to get going, due to in-cockpit preparations.

Cheers

Mad... Interesting. Unfortunately your profile reveals nothing. Where do you work? Are you an ATCO at a licenced ATC Unit at a major airport.

I used conditional clearances all my life at two major airports and one training airfield and never had any problem at all. I was properly trained to employ the technique and trained many ATCOs to do the same. It's a very valuable tool in achieving the movement rates demanded by the airlines and the airport authority.

I hope you don't fall into the same category as a trainee we once had at Heathrow - wouldn't ever use 3nm spacing because it was considered to be "too dangerous"!!! Needless to say a posting out resulted.

It's possible to shift a heck of a lot of traffic, aircraft and vehicles, in perfect SAFETY using conditional clearances. You just have to know what you are doing and do it well.

Mad....you do make some very interesting points but I have to say that I agree with Heathrow Director. I do put safety above all else, but the arguement that you make could be taken even further. There have been numerous incidents involving a/c in the circuit....should we ban circuit traffic? Should we leave all departing a/c on their SID because giving vectors/climb throughs to expedite departures is less safe? Facetious I know, but the only way to make ATC 100% safe would be to not allow a/c to get airborne at all!

I can actually think of incidents where the situational awareness provided by a conditional clearance would possibly have prevented an incursion. Imagine a vehicle calling to enter the runway, which the ATCO assumes to be the one he can see at A1. Actually it is another vehicle at an intermediate holding point. An "after the landing..." clearance would not result in a runway incursion and would be quite safe...the "wrong" vehicle would wait until the landing a/c had passed before entering the runway. However, a direct clearance to enter the runway as the landing a/c touched down could be disastrous, as a vehicle has now been cleared onto the runway ahead of it!

Sir Herbert...we tend not to pass any traffic information to a/c at the holding point which could be misconstrued as a conditional clearance eg "I'll get you away after the next inbound". I know that the chance of such info being mis-interpreted is remote, but it's less safe than using an actual conditional clearance. It's Catch 22! Thanks again for taking such an interest, it's great to have a pilot's perspective on all this :)

what about "Hold A1 - landing aircraft at 4 and 8 miles"

after all it is quite common to hear "can you accept an immediate? 737 on X mile final". I don't think that's ever been misconstrued as "Cleared for immediate.. etc etc"

I was recently asked if we were ready for an immediate between 2 A/C on final. We replied we were, and then the gap proved insufficient and we had to wait for the 2nd one to land before cleared to line up.

Total waiting time at holding point about 10 minutes, and because we were aware of the big picture we did not mind a bit, as that is what happens every now and then.

However, had we only been told to hold short and report ready, we probably would have queried after the first one landing and taken up R/T time with another A/C on final.

So to me it is a no brainer, conditional clearances are a major source of information to keep everyybody in the loop and allow them to anticipate with minimum R/T chatter. Keep them.

As a side note I am getting a bit tired of all these "improved safety" changes. We used to be considered professionals capable of taking responsible decisions, both pilots and Atcos alike. If there is a need for safer (dumber) procedures perhaps the bar for entry should be raised to only allow people in who can actually cope with the job at hand?

<<We used to be considered professionals capable of taking responsible decisions, both pilots and Atcos alike. If there is a need for safer (dumber) procedures perhaps the bar for entry should be raised to only allow people in who can actually cope with the job at hand?>>

VERY wise words, S76Heavy.

:D:D:D:D:D:D

Brilliant post

I agree with Sir Herbert Gussett, a brilliant post S76Heavy.
:D:D:D:D:D:D

Hi

Havent been on here for a while so sorry for the late response.

From July EDI are also going to be trialling this over the top reduction in flexibility. I am sure over the years we have had no runway incursions caused by conditional clearances so the trial will be proved a great success.

If pilots feel so strongly that this tool in an atcos bag of tricks is worthwhile can you complain to your attendee at our flight ops committee to raise it to our inept management types. They will probably ignore you however as this then will not justify someones role in the over bloated NSL safety department. :E

Have received a good one at Edinburgh before, "Hold A1, two to land". Can't this be used more when your management act like a bunch of tw@ts ??? It is better than simply "Hold A1".