Whatever happened to courtesy in Hong Kong ATC?
 

It has been quite noticeable for some time now that Hong Kong Air Traffic Controllers are losing their good habits of politeness that for many years told them apart from the rest of the professionals in this area of the world, particularly since some local staff started taking the seat behind the microphone on the other side of the frequency. What happened to the good mornings, good evenings, or even a simple hello or goodbye that we all used to hear every time we tuned into the frequency or were released to the next one? Usually, old habits die hard, but for an old habit to die, first it has to exist. Apparently, for these new controllers, these habits were never learned. It’s a pity, because, for an european who flew in The Old Continent for many years, it was a pleasure to realize that at least in a small area of this “asian air jungle” we could still experience the politeness and civility that was part of the relationship between controllers and pilots. Workload and fatigue are no excuses for that kind of behavior. We pilots are also subject to these pressures and if you listen carefully, 99% of the pilots flying in HK airspace start their call with a greeting and don’t change to the next frequency without a goodbye. Maybe it is time to introduce a class of good manners in the training syllabus for the new controllers.
A simple sign of courtesy can make life so much easier, even or especially under pressure.

Maybe they had a visit to New York ATC to learn "R/T Etiquette".......!!!

Perhaps the controllers could not find "pleasantries" in the RT hand book. Come to think of it neither did I. As with please and thank you in the cockpit, it is a given. Nice but unnecessary chatter on busy frequencies.

My dear Ndicho Moja, maybe you are right and I am wrong. We are all too busy and too much in a hurry nowadays, aren’t we? “Pleasantries” as you call it are a waste of time. And you are right again when you say that they don’t come in any RT hand book (or in the Life hand book, for that matter). We learned it (some of us, anyway) from our parents as they learned it from the generation before. It’s called evolution. Why must it be any different in a professional activity, when it takes only two or three seconds to make the difference? Perhaps you should try it; it might make your day a bit more pleasant and less gray.

Regards

Not a question of right or wrong. Nothing to do with evolution or social order, just a transfer of information. Again, nice, pleasant even feel-good, but really not required or necessary. In a social environment, then that is quite different.:)

Alvega
 

Standard ICAO R/T phraseologies discourage greetings, courtesies as well as expletives.##

If you want us to give our regards to your folks, lets do it over the aviator pub after hours. At work, remember we talks to hundreds of pilots and you only talk to a few (ATC & company only) while we wreck our brains;
Just no time to waste on trivialities, sorry!

Good morning HK, it CX xxx at Elato, FL 390, sqawking 7500.:}:E

Good Morning CX xxx, cleared the Elato 1A, 25R, high speed through Melon.:ok:

Roger (read back).

What wrong with that. Are we not allowed to say “Good Morning”:=

If you get, give it back.:ok:

If it is busy as hell (like close in on Director) get the job done first. We will have beers later.:ok:

A certain CX BTC on the airbus will give you an upHill right up if you use ANY pleasentries on the radio!

Small men with big ego's and the power of ERAS, where will it end?

AFL

That knob is well known. He has somewhere bewteen ZERO and 0.001% respect as a person and an aviator.

Nothing wrong with an occasional pleasantry.

He's correct
 

Unfortunately the BTC is correct if strict interpretation is applied, but there always has to be room for latitude, does a hello, good bye, or even more to the point a thank you if the controller has done you a favour imply poor RT . I don't think so unless the frequency is maxed out , then pleasantries are not appropriate, but conversely not giving the squawk code on first contact requires the controller to go back and ask for it. This lapse increases the controllers workload and the RT congestion far more than a simple good evening.
in defense of the Hong Kong controllers, I can understand that they are becoming so busy with the increase in air traffic that pleasantries have no place in their working lives but that shouldn't detract from the thoroughly professional job that they do every day of the year. From me to them, a big thank you for keeping us safe every day of the year and that trumps everything else.

courtesy??
 

You want this?

Alpha Bravo Charlie 123 please turn immediately right heading 150 for collision avoidance. Please expedite thank you.

Some of you might notice a guy always repeats your callsign, and thank this and that, say the instruction twice....you want this?

How many controller(s) you are talking to in a sector and how many pilots a controller is talking to.

Courtesy?? Care about good morning, goodbye...?? Go home and teach your parrot. Perhaps someone will greet you like this "WELCOME HOME".

Good xxxxx etc etc are not standard ATC phraseologies and should not be encouraged, we are taught not to do that!

DD

courtesy
 

G'day! Initial contact and when leaving the frequency it's nice for the pleasantries.In between it's just responding to instructions, don't need please/ thanks- we all know that. For those who cannot exchange pleasantries on initial call and when leaving that's ok we know( as you do ) that you have problems. For me I like to say g'day-cya- etc. With a name like moja i can understand why you don't! CYA.

....STANDBY......:ugh:

Alvega, shut the F#$K up! Please


would you like a hug?

Maybe finally HKG ATC has realised what a bunch of arrogant prics we are (as this thread demonstrates) and are tired of being nice to us!:yuk:

If you want someone nice to you, you should stop barking to us like "What's the delay?":)

Merry Chistmas
 

I want to thank you for your posts and wish you all a Merry Christmas.
As for you, “The Kook”, if I wanted a hug from an ogre, I would choose the Shrek. He may be green and have bad breath but his manners are a lot better than yours, not to mention the spelling.
For “AGNES” and all the rest of the pre-programmed robotic bunch, get a life and, by the way, don’t forget to change the batteries, if you can read my barking.

alvega, merry christmas to you and those who care. I'm an HKG ATC and I do agree with your observation, many of the local youngsters don't know what manner / politeness is. Ok, if it's a radar environment, it may be barely justified to skip those greetings on occasions, but in a tower environment, would someone else get delayed for greetings between ATC / pilot? Get an $x extra fuel burn (0.5 sec delay)? Well then file a formal complaint against ATC or even sue us!

But on the other side, many locally based pilots are not that polite either! (After all, who started this in the first place, ATC / pilots? I don't know.) In the past, I would initiate greetings to the pilots, but I don't do this too often now (at least to the locally based airlines), as it sound stupid especially when you have a couple of pilots in a row who don't really care. Having said that, my bottom line is whenever a pilot says good morning, I would do the same in return (unless I'm busy with something else, e.g. urgent coordination with another controller, maybe).

What could you expect if the first concept that PP teaches students is :"All pilots are idiots!"? :cool:

Sadly it seems that good manners are declining with each successive generation throughout society.

I try to treat people in the way which I myself like to be treated. Brief, simple curtesies and good manners are all basic components of building and sustaining my crew into a team. The same goes beyond the crew to Traffic staff, Engineers, the refueller etc all the way to the Hotel staff when we check-in at the end of the day.

As for R/T, when it is busy lets stick to the essentials, but when possible why not say please and thanks for the "direct to" or "cancel speed restriction" etc. The same common sense applies inside the cockpit. Don't expect me to be saying please and thank you during a rejected take off or a missed approach, but I would be thanking my F/O for his support etc afterwards.

HKG ATC are not perfect, but neither are we CX pilots. I often cringe when overhearing my collegues blunt or sarcastic transmissions, but then I do also share their frustrations from time to time with certain ATC controllers or situations.

When frustrations start to rise I find it helpful to consider how the same situation would be handled with ATC in BOM, DEL, JFK etc. Personally I will happily take the delay or disruption under the control of HKG ATC anyday compared to almost everywhere else in the world (except perhaps LHR, who are and always will be the worlds best).

A few months ago I flew in from south asia to HKG. Just prior to descent we had a medical emergency, and received the usual superb response from HKG ATC for this situation.

After the flight I phoned the HKG ATC supervisor to register my thanks for the slick arrival and very professional support by his guys and girls from 200 miles out all the way to our parking bay. As we turned into the parking bay the ambulance was pulling into position, nice job! (My sick passenger ultimately ok in hospital) Below is a synopsis of the phone call.

Ring... Ring...

ATC "Yeh"

Me "Hello, is that the ATC Supervisor?"

ATC "Yep"

Me "Ah.. I was the Captain of CXxxx. I am just calling to thank your guys for the very nice arrival from xxx. We had a medical emergency and your guys really did an excellent job of getting us where we needed asap"

ATC "OK". Click (He just hangs up on me!!)

Me "Ohh..."

My initial response was to think "F*uck Y*u, that's the last time I ever thank HKG ATC for anything". But in all fairness, the Supervisor sounded as if his first language was not English, so perhaps his words (or lack of) were not a true reflection of what he meant to say.

If this Supervisor did not pass on my thank you to the guys and girls in HKG radar, approach, director, tower and ground that evening, then shame on him. Thank you for this incident, plus a similar one more recently and the day to day HKG ATC service which I have taken for granted for the past 12 years.

However please lets keep up the good manners (but keep it short) where it is possible.