LAHSO in UK?
 

I was reading through CAP493 (MATS Part 1) this evening, as you do, and I came upon this curious paragraph:
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....39220717b0.png
Does this mean that it is possible to get an American-style "cleared to land, hold short runway...." in the UK?? Not too sure where it would be used, or why (given 19B.3). Does anyone have any information on this?

FAA style LAHSO isn’t used in the UK and the airline I worked for prohibited us from accepting such clearances - they even added a remark to our flight plan “LAHSO not authorised”

Didn’t stop Chicago trying it on - they got a firm “unable” from me.

recent addition
 

This section was added to CAP493 in september of 2025, effective date october 31st 2025. this is VERY new. I highly doubt that it would have been effective when such a prohibition was in place from your airline

You're asking in the wrong place; try asking this question in 'ATC Issues'.

LAHSO was common at KPRC when I used to fly there.

Fixed wing aircraft usually used 21/3 (L&R) but helicopter training was conducted on 30/12. The helicopters were required to LAHSO 3R/21L. Full length of 3R/21L was always available.

Is there similar helicopter training on intersecting runways in UK?

Yeah, I assume its going to be a "just because its legal, doesnt mean its used" thing

LAHSO dates back in the USA to before 2000; I happened to have a few hours stopover at Newark that year and watched it happen several times. I remember reading an issue of 'Air Clues' where it was mentioned by the pilot of a Hercules inbound to the USA who refused to accept the clearance.

This isn't land and hold short as would be practiced in the USA (i.e. to instruct an aircraft on approach to land and hold short of a crossing runway to allow independent ops)

This is about requesting a pilot, after landing and while decelerating, or even after stopping, as it says in the third section, to hold short of an intersection. Only once that is achieved (i.e. holding short), would the controller then commit something on to the runway in front of the holding aircraft. This is mainly aimed at holding short of a cross runway during backtrack, as it says in 19B3(3)

I believe it’s rarely used by the big 3 in the US nowadays after a near miss during a dual go-around at EWR. Insurance costs are prohibitive to use it.

Fly to all the major airports, LAHSO is still a tool in ATC's toolbox when needed. As far as insurance, nothing communicated to my airline that it's use is frowned upon.

I agree that 19B.3 would seem to preclude its use like it's used in the USA. I'm struggling to imagine a scenario in which it would be used here. Assume an airport with two crossing runways (a simple cross shape for example, rwy 18/36 and 27/09). One a/c cleared to land on 18, instructed "LAHS runway 27" or whatever. Another a/c lined up on 27 awaiting departure. 19B.3 means departure can't roll until the first one has landed and is not going to infringe 27. Under current procedures this is exactly the same. If the arrival naturally stopped / vacated short of 27 you'd launch the departure at that point. If it rolled through, you would issue instructions to stop it backtracking through the intersection if you wanted to roll the departure. Either way, allowing for some sort of braking failure or even a long float / deep landing as it does, it doesn't allow for any more flexibility than we already have.

The only scenario I can think of (in my example) is when you want the arrival to vacate onto rwy 27, eg for taxi to parking, but it's obstructed with the departure who's lined up. That seems like a very niche and rare reason to introduce a heavily-restricted version of a procedure we've never used before? Other than some sort of plan for alignment with international procedures perhaps.

Would love to hear any actual, likely benefits from more experienced ATCOs (or pilots) who can spot what I've missed!

19B is from iCAO Doc 4444 PANS ATM 7.10.3.1

LAHSO isn’t really used in the UK the way it is in the US. The rule in CAP493 mainly allows ATC to ask an aircraft to hold short of an intersection after landing or while slowing down, not the American-style “cleared to land, hold short” clearance during approach. In practice it’s rarely used and current UK procedures already cover most situations without needing true LAHSO operations.

LAHSO strictly prohibited at every Airline I've worked for.

Reading that amendment as an ex-controller, it seems to me it only states something which was OK to do anyway, but someone has decided should be in black and white, and I’m generally against that kind of thing. Reading it in ‘lawyer mode’, it’s appallingly badly written, with the term, ‘landing aircraft’ in particular being roundly abused by way of a missing, ‘previously’, and there being a glaring, ‘and shall not’ missing after ‘is not’ in the final sub-para. 3/10 must try harder to the editor of MATS Pt 1 from me (a shame, as I always thought it was very well written).

Why isn't this in 'ATC Issues'? It's more relevant to controllers after all.

It's ok, given the recent consultation, MATS Part 1, which I agree has deteriorated over the years, will disappear within a year or so to be replaced by a basic set of rules, AMC and GM a la EASA/SERA, obviously accompanied by a massive expansion in everyone's MATS Part 2s as they scramble to incorporate basic stuff that was previosuly in MATS part 1.

I was involved with MATS 1 when ICAO introduced LAHSO - it was universally agreed to be a bad idea that wouldn’t be included in the UK book. But the extract posted above feels awfully familiar and I’d have sworn that it’s been in the manual somewhere for years.

I’ve been out of the CAA for years now and haven’t really followed what’s happened in the books in recent years, nor in actual practice, but I can’t help feeling that losing the MATS 1 would be a big backward step. I hope - as Gonzo suggests - that all of the good stuff, like interpreting the ICAO stuff, is kept somehow.

Given what Gonzo has just said, I'm going to guess that OJT will become even more fun with newbies with nice shiny licences! A bit like 15/20 years ago, but worse. Thank goodness I retired a couple of years ago.

Same here, I can recall using that para as a method of "encouraging" a landing aircraft to exit asap. It was never interpreted as LAHSO.

The best reply to LAHSO in the USA is "Unable".

Do controllers not use 'land after' any more?

I can't speak for what happens at every unit, but where the rules permit it, & it's a viable option, I would imagine they do.

Personally I don't see the point. Half the crews don't understand it / query it / read back "cleared to land"

If things are so tight that you can't get a landing clearance in, maybe the unit should review their spacing procedures :)

There IS a 'point' if it's still in the Mats Pt 1 although I know a lot of controllers were scared of using it.
It was frequently used when I was training at Glasgow with a 'light' following an airliner; we were taught 'land after the (Trident/737)' if the light aircraft wanted to continue into a touch and go and there would be sufficient room before the airliner vacated.
Alternatively 'expect late landing clearance' could be used.

Nothing scary about it. Just not practical.

Maybe it had a place in a world of Tridents and light aircraft doing touch and go's. In the current european commercial scene it has little use.

I've used it a few times. The replies:

Say again

Cleared to land

Confirm cleared to land?

A lot of controllers say 'execute missed approach' if it gets to less than 2 miles between landers.

Nope. Just sit up a bit straighter in the chair.


BTW, 'Execute Missed Approach' is only used when carrying out an approach to a military airfield. (according to CAP413).

I don't like "land after..." because it is not universally understood, but it can achieve a safe landing at times when I am unable to issue a landing clearance and it is a useful tool for me used at least a few times a month. What the pilot does with it is up to them and sometimes they send themselves around, which is absolutely fine by me, but more often they land because the scenario fits their safety margins or SOPs. Why wouldn't I offer this when appropriate rather than instructing a missed approach?

The confusion might be resolved if we stopped using UK-specific procedures like ‘land after’ and just applied a type of Doc4444 reduced runway separation minima. Military aircrew don’t know what ‘land after’ means either, so they tend to read back ‘cleared to land’ or ‘cleared to land after’ since it only exists in the UK civil scene.

This links into the post about abolishing MATS part 1–why don’t we just use Doc 4444? It’s actually far more comprehensive and more up to date in many aspects.

Because the UK used to be in the vanguard of development, of positive change which went beyond the minimum standard stipulated for the rest of the world. ‘We’ broke new ground, led the pack, and were credited with achieving significant improvements.

That’s all changed, to the point that simply bringing the UK in line with the lowest common denominator now seems beneficial.

We’re making an appalling job of being the human race, generally, and specifically in the UK (see my remarks previously about the ludicrous idea that the disparate peoples on this miserable rock are ‘united’ and that we are all subjugated to a ‘king’ whose obsession with feminine hygiene products was world news), we could not be doing a more contemptible job of supporting our forebears achievements.

While I can't claim to be fully up-to-speed with either 4444 or MATS 1 (particularly the EASA and Brexit years) I find it hard to understand the suggestion that the ICAO doc is more comprehensive or up to date than the UK manual.. When I was involved, much of MATS 1 was a reproduction of 4444 with supplementary, interpretive and amplifying material added where experience, often gained through incidents, showed that it would be beneficial. Having grown up with, applied, and subsequently written bits of MATS 1, I can't help feeling that relying on 4444 alone would lose a lot of hard-won and beneficial extras. I don't know how much might have been lost with the introduction of SERA, maybe much of the additional stuff has already been lost, but as CayleysCoachman says, the UK does seem to be heading for the lowest common denominator.

Maybe it's a generational thing, I remember being a young trainee controller and hearing the old hands complaining that things used to be better when they started out in the business. Of course, some things need to change as the world evolves, and I'm sure there's an element of rose-tinted glasses in places, but we seem to be taking backward steps in the aviation business at present in some ways. [/OLD CODGER MODE OFF]