Do you know how this can happen?
 

Mods, this is another moan directed at ASA, its not finger pointing exercise, more a fact finding moan as I'm trying to fathom the ineptitude of what I recently experienced.
Scene setting...
Big airways mega-cruiser approaching the end of its 13hr journey from its sandy furnace home base going to a pleasant Southern Australian destination.
Mega-cruiser has been in Australian airspace for 7 1/2 hours and has via CPDLC (datalink) been dutifully reporting ETA's and such.
5 minutes before computed TOD the lovely lady on the wireless issues the expected STAR clearance with a requirement to cross an intermediate waypoint....10 minutes!!! after the original eta.
Needless to say, I suffered sense of humour failure and ATC were advised that this was impossible, and would they like us to hold.
Order was restored after extensive/expensive vectoring to allow the various Saab 340's etc do their thing.
Needless to say I'm utterly flabbergasted that a first (cough cough) world ATC system can be this disorganised such that they advised us of the need to lose so much time with so little warning, I can live 2, 3, 4, 5....30 minutes if I'm given notice, but 5 minutes before TOD? not acceptable IMHO.(At destination there was no bad weather..disabled aeroplanes..navaid issues or closed runways)
Anyone got any thoughts?
BTW, not a slight on any controllers per se, we work with imperfect systems in an imperfect world, given that, how can this be allowed to happen if ASA are supposed to be a service provider?

Thoughts appreciated!

H1 :ok:

They probably couldnt determine the Ego category until they spoke to you - they then had to rapidly apply a ten minute hot air & bluster emergency separation category at the last minute for the sake of all humanity. :E :E

Clearly theres still hope for humanity in this case :ok::E

Sooo your saying you don't know either?

:E nup , no idea. But it does happen quite a bit.... Perhaps in the ops normal for ASA category

No idea. But welcome to our world. Cobt, radar all the way and we still get that and more.

There's the problem right there. Why is this so? Is the question that has to be asked.

Just because you are in the airspace for 7+ and guzzling 10T per hour in a sand encrusted dugong does not mean they are gonna let you in when you want.

ACA provide a Strategic Slot, NOC provide a tactical slot, Metron will use that best guess as you did leave 13hr + ago and then you are it.

Yes its a horses arse, no its not America or Europe, live with it.

If this is such a worry then wait until you see the new Flight Priorities Review Report and draft AIP ENR 1.4–10 ........

2015 Aeronautical Information Publication Flight Priorities Review

Have a read and tell them what you think next time a Saab cuts your grass onto 34L.......


ps. Haughtney does it want to make you go back to the Falcon or is it toooo comfy in the tripple?

haughtney, the point is we give the 10 minutes (or whatever it is) as a starting point and we go from there. You let us know what you can achieve and we then vector or hold accordingly. We're not expecting you to achieve the impossible - it's letting you know the required delay.

slice, where have you been? We've had this discussion every few months for years. Pilots seem to think that because they can fly to cross the threshold to within 15 seconds (or whatever) that everything that influences a sequence is equally precise. It isn't. Closer in departures intrude, wind changes intrude, medevac traffic intrudes, less than perfect pilots intrude, go-arounds intrude, aircraft requiring a different runway intrude, aircraft being able to accept a different runway intrudes.

If we give you a 10 minute delay 1,000 miles out what is that based on? Certainly not reality. 23 aircraft haven't departed yet. Can you pick up 5 minutes in 200 miles because a couple of aircraft are accepting an alternate runway due to a few knots less crosswind than forecast?

TwoT,

Will always prefer the Dassault, the only bad thing about it was I couldn't stand up properly to pee :}

Back on message, I'm not moaning about the 10 minutes, thats not the issue, ATC delays are a fact of life, yep we deal with it. Giving 5 minutes notice of a 10 minute delay after knowing where we are going to be at what time, for the last 7 hours, thats just dumbass.

Or is that unreasonable?

Le Pin, but in the same breath what is a 10 minute delay 200 miles out based on? that 10 minutes represents 80-90nm for me, as you say reality? well where does 10 minutes come from? is it a contrived number? is it a standard delay? Does traffic magically appear at international airports? Don't you get a little advance warning of filed flights?
The point I'm making is that as a SERVICE provider, ASA are super quick at pointing out our deficiencies, yet when something as nonsensical or something as having the appeareance of being nonsensical is implemented etc etc and gets questioned, it appears too fall into the "too hard", or we have the "big picture you dont" basket. Even places like Mumbai and Delhi give you a better idea and a damn sight more notice of delays.

H, mate....

I say you say I see a pattern forming here..... Equus ferus caballus conbusit, by any other name.

It is obviously too much to ask and is only getting worse there has been a dumbing down of their profession as much as there has bee in ours to the point where the man up the stick would not know the difference between a Triple and Buck72.

Least of all an understanding of physical properties of 200T at 280 KIAS going down at 3000fpm 115nm from TD, dont even contemplate a min clean speed.

We have both experienced a lot better from places "not here" it is unfortunate that our people up the stick need a safety case to operate a boom mic

I think it would only be fair for Australian registered aircraft then to be given 10 minute plus enroute holding prior to exiting the Australian FIR. Clearance not available. See how quick it gets fixed then.

How about a reduction in ATC fees by 50% per 5 minute delay ? There is zero cost incentive for ASA to fix this.

It is absolute B/S, I have flown cost index 0 for hours to drop 20 plus minutes as requested by ATC, hit the target within 10 seconds, to be held for a further 10 minutes low level.

Then we hear complaints from domestic carriers when they basically fly multiple narrow bodies in parallel on that same city pair for an occupied landing slot that was known before that domestic aircraft probably pushed back two sectors ago.

Same goes for a domestic carrier PER to SYD, ATC knows their landing slot hours out, why are they launching aircraft out of MEL for SYD for the same slot, instead of gate hold ?

All these costs are passed onto the Australian consumer, it is costing them millions, costing ASA next to nothing.

Cmon haughtney. It happens for the same reason that holding I to DXB is sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes 45 and sometimes 0 and track shortening well inside the trombone.

At least you're dealing with it only once every now and then (as am I). My heart goes out to those that cop this sort of stuff multiple times a day :ok:

About 6-7 years ago ASA trialed an arrivals sequencing scheme whereby inbound heavies were given an RTA for the 200nm point around the time they crossed the WA Coast. Problem was, most decided to ignore the time and maintain their planned Mach no. Which brings us to the present. :ugh:

Keg, I'm not moaning about delays, far from it, such is life in busy airspace, my gripe is the stupendously late notification of such delays, particularly given the amount of time spent in the MEL/BNE FIR etc, its not as if appearing 200nm from destination is a surprise.

Savage 175, that sounds very much like a compliance issue rather than a process or systems issue, but taken a step further, why did the carriers not respect the RTA? was it because it was unmanageable for the aircraft? was it due to the RTA being inaccurate? i.e. get there early and land early, was it because despite the RTA operators had no confidence due to previously mentioned problems and that others not participating didn't experience delays? (just a question, not criticism)
Be all that as it may, what good reason or excuse can be given for such late notification of delays? no one seems to be able to answer this so far, apart from saying its the system...if it is the system, does anyone else think the system in this instance needs a little work?

haughtney, the 10 minutes comes from Meastro. I'd love to be able to lock things in further out but it's a dynamic environment. Maybe you had a 4 minute delay that blew out due to another heavy requiring a different runway or having to accommodate medevac traffic or any other of a multitude of reasons.

I can explain how Maestro works in detail if wanted.

Le Pin,

My understanding of Maestro is that it is designed to optimise the landing sequence using the arrivals part of it, and it keeps recalculating etc etc, a bit like my Garmin.
My understanding is that the distance of 200nm from destination is user defined, rather than system specific? I did ask btw about our sequence on taxi in, no preceding arrivals for 6 or 7 minutes, no departures for 4 minutes, so I was and still am bit baffled.

Get over it Mate. Should have been flying into Brissie a couple of years ago Faaaa...k 55 minutes with no weather was my record and us maggot/a320 drivers do it 40-50 times a month. Delays are a fact of life unfortunately, take a vector descend hold whatever. Half the delays are normally caused by some big fat dugong back at final approach speed 10 miles out!😜

The Aussie controllers are the second best in the world
 

And we all know who is no 1.... (The rest of the world)

Jokes aside

Those of us who fly around the globe to some of the busiest airports in the world have never been able to understand the continual slow down speed up slow down speed up again that goes on in Oz Airspace... Lovely people but no idea or perhaps the wrong tools. BNE is OK ...SYD and MEL :ugh:

I asked an Aussie controller at a conference why it happens .... his response.... why is it a problem?

Here's a few simple examples of why late notice delays can/do occur.

Missed approaches - have to fit them back in somewhere.
Whether it was pilot/controller error, weather, or whatever.
That re-sequencing is now an extra 2-3 minute delay for every other inbound aircraft.

Weather/runway changes - losing LAHSO in Melbourne means going from a max arrival rate of 44 to about 24 per hour. This may be caused by a momentary increase in xwind above 20knots. Do the math on the flow on effect.

Preceding traffic considers a high speed descent is 230knots at 40 miles.

Priority traffic. We don't get 7 hours notice of medevac flights, so if one pops up at an inconvenient time, sorry, but you're no.2.

...

What's that, an just another international twin? ;)

10 minutes at 200nm? That's pretty tough. We get a "good" indication of the delay from ATC at 350-odd miles out. Enough time to duck down to your best "holding in a straight line" altitude and make the time.

Is Adelaide that busy?