Angry ATC & Impatient Pilots Argue: “You Need To Be Replaced,” “Go Back To LaGuardia!”

Air traffic controllers have stressful jobs, and they can have a lot of tasks to manage at once. However, sometimes it seems like they only create more work for themselves when they have an attitude. That brings us to a recent incident that happened at San Diego International Airport (SAN), where pilots slung quite the insults at the air traffic controller… while I think that was unprofessional, I don’t disagree with the sentiment, I think?

San Diego air traffic controller loses patience with pilots

VASAviation has the air traffic control audio and a visualization of a recent busy morning at San Diego Airport.

Context is important here — San Diego has a single runway, and also has rather limited space for planes to taxi, so when the airport gets busy, getting all planes to and from the runways is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle for air traffic controllers. That’s especially tricky when planes land before their gate is ready, and they need somewhere to wait.

So this was one of those situations where the ground controller obviously had a lot of planes that wanted to move, but limited ability to actually move them. Airline pilots are also always looking to move as soon as possible, and sometimes they want to remind air traffic controllers of their desire to move, follow up on progress, etc.

After the air traffic controller gave some other pilots taxi clearance, a United pilot wanted to follow up on their taxi clearance, and then the following interaction happened:

United pilot: “What about United 1069?”
Air traffic controller: “NO!”
United pilot: “Just curious for 1069, do we have a time to Chicago?”
Air traffic controller: “United 1069, I’ve got one taxiway, planes all over the place cause planes arrived too early with no gates. When there’s a slot to get you down there, cause whether you wait there or you’re number 14 waiting at the end, it makes no difference.”
United pilot: “All right, thank you.”

The situation got worse when a Southwest pilot then also wanted to follow up on taxi clearance:

Southwest pilot: “Push, for Southwest 3896, at 103.”
Air traffic controller: “No, there’s traffic inbound in the alley. I’ve been doing this 18 years. When it’s clear, I’ll call you back.”
Southwest pilot: “Yeah, he just came in the alley and he’s parking right now, for Southwest 3896.”
Air traffic controller: “Well, in about two minutes ask your ground crew to look towards the east and you will see the next company coming by.”
Southwest pilot: “Sounds like you need to be replaced.”
Air traffic controller: “Sounds like you have the attitude over there too, because I told you there’s traffic coming and you want to argue with me about it.”
Unknown pilot: “Go back to LaGuardia!”

You can listen to the entire audio for yourself below.

I understand the air traffic controller’s impatience, but…

I understand where the air traffic controller is coming from. I assume he’s on top of things, and he knows exactly what he has planned for each aircraft, to have everything moving as efficiently as possible. On a frequency where there’s barely a gap between transmissions, he doesn’t need pilots constantly following up on when they’re going to get clearance, when he’s processing everyone as quickly as he can.

At the same time, I’m not sure what he’s trying to accomplish with his tone, or with the way he lectures pilots. If you’re already stressed and overworked, spending time on frequency trying to angrily justify why you’re doing what you’re doing doesn’t seem very productive either.

He could just as easily answer these questions with “unable,” or a few words about how there’s more traffic coming. Admittedly some of the commentary from pilots is petty as well, about him needing to be replaced, or how he should go back to LaGuardia. That last one is at least sort of hilarious, and does remind me of the below interaction from last year.

Bottom line

A San Diego ground controller started to get rather angry at impatient airline pilots. The airport was very busy with limited ability to move planes, but he obviously wasn’t a fan of pilots following up on when they’d be cleared to depart.

However, rather than just telling them what they were requesting wasn’t possible, he did quite a bit of lecturing, and that wasn’t well received by pilots.

What do you make of this San Diego ATC interaction?