Huh? When I fly into a “small GA airfield” with ATC, I want to be sure that the guy or gal on the other end of the RT is as competent as the guy at our home base at EMA. Whilst the pilot ALWAYS has the ultimate rsponsibility for safety, if I’m meant to be following ATC instructions I want to know that they are considered and issued by a 100% competent authority, appropriately trained, qualified, licenced and in current practice.

Next time you fly, think about a child giving instructions to the aeroplane you’re sat in. Think about what’d happen if, despite being told what to say, the child said the wrong thing, and then before it was corrected there was an r/t failure. If you ever listen to ATC, think about listening to pilots in training who, having been told what to say by their instructor, as still hesitant and mix things up. And then think about how you’d feel about that happening when you’re sitting in a 747 with 400 other people. And with the spurious ATC transmissions from unauthorised sources that have happened in the past, how does a pilot tell that this child is genuinely passing on instructions from a real controller?

This is potentially lives at stake (whether at a “small GA airport” or a major airport like JFK), and millions of dollars worth of equipment in the firing line. It absolutely horrifies me that anyone would allow such a thing to happen. What was that guy thinking putting a kid on the mike? I don’t care if the kid was “supervised”. Anyone in ATC who did that, I would very seriously question their judgement and competence to be an air traffic controller, and I’d certainly have a significantly reduced confidence in the reliability of any instructions that the guy gave to me himself, let alone those from a child. The guy(s) who allowed this to happen should be fired, and potentially brought up on a charge of willfully endangering aeroplanes too.

Andy

The flight was inbound to EMA (my local airport). I have it on very good authority that the incident was genuine, despite myself being a little cynical… Mind you in some ways I’m not surprised – as I said, just goes to show the sort of punters Ryanair drags out to fly :diablo:

If you’re up there willing an aeroplane to land, you should really be starting to think about going around! :rolleyes:

Andy

The DC-9, BAC 1-11 and Caravelle had them, too.

And in fact, Skydive Perris still use stairs in the rear of their DC-9-21 – the jumpers go out of the back.

Andy

haha…. who do you fly for Andy?

Nah, I don’t fly for a job (although I do have a share in a light aircraft)… I just work for a very large computer software company that has most of its development in Hyderabad and Bangalore, which I have to visit from time-to-time.

Andy

They were due to leave today, but staff became suspicious after they did not emerge from their room for 24 hours.

Last time I was in India I didn’t emerge from my hotel room for 24 hours either – more accurately, I don’t think I emerged from the toilet in my room for 24 hours actually!!! 😮

Andy

I think it is interesting to see that what some have got in their best, others have in their worst. I think it has to be a reflection of ‘on the day experience’, but for example, Andy has CDG (T2) in his worst, but I found it very good when transferring there recently, whilst he has T1 at LHR in his best, and whilst I haven’t flown through there for 5 years, each time I did fly out of there was always the same experience, long long queues round the check-in hall and BA and bmi staff running up and down the line desperately looking for passengers who should be on the next departing flights (accepting much of the BA congestion has been removed now anyway).

Maybe, but I’ve been through CDG T2 and LHR T1 several times over the last year, and each time I’ve gotten the same impression. I would chose LHR T1 over any CDG terminal, anytime.

Its also a case of how you are able to navigate through the airport. At LHR T1 for example, as a Star Alliance Gold, I can use premium checkin, the fast track security, the *A lounge, etc… At CDG, with no status on Skyteam, if I’m travelling steerage (as I do have to in Europe) I have to line up with the rest of the goats. Makes quite a difference to some parts of the process!

Andy