Sheesh: Unprofessional Toronto ATC Argues With British Airways Pilot

Canadians have a reputation for being friendly, but perhaps that doesn’t apply to at least one of the tower controllers at Canada’s busiest airport…

British Airways pilot angry over air traffic controller behavior

VASAviation has the air traffic control audio and a visualization of an event that recently happened at Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ). It involves a British Airways jet, as it approached the airport.

On the approach frequency, the British Airways flight was given clearance for the ILS approach on runway 6R. The pilots were then told to switch over to the tower frequency, as is standard… and that’s where things went downhill.

Once they switched frequencies, they announced their presence — “Speedbird 9ZY heavy, established 06R.” There was no response from the air traffic controller, so they made another call. Here’s how that went from there:

British Airways pilot: “Speedbird 9ZY heavy”
Air traffic controller: “Continue.”
British Airways pilot: “Speedbird 9ZY heavy, confirm we’re cleared for the approach?”
Air traffic controller: “Go back to arrival, please, Speedbird.”
British Airways pilot: “Speedbird 9ZY heavy, we’re established 10 miles for 06R.”
Air traffic controller: “Continue.”
British Airways pilot: “Speedbird 9ZY heavy, confirm we’re cleared the approach?”
Air traffic controller: “Speedbird 9ZY, go back to arrival, please. Arrival frequency. Go back to arrival.”
British Airways pilot: “Can you give me the frequency, please, for 9ZY.”
Air traffic controller: “Your last assigned arrival you were on, go back to them.”
British Airways pilot: “Can you give me the frequency, please? Because we will be transfered over.”

The British Airways pilot was then ignored, so he followed up, and then here’s how that went:

British Airways pilot: “Speedbird 9ZY heavy, request.”
British Airways pilot: “Tower, Speedbird 9ZY heavy.”
Air traffic controller: “Speedbird 9ZY, that’s what happens when you don’t listen to arrival. What can I do for you?”
British Airways pilot: “We were transfered to this frequency from arrival, you sent us back there, we haven’t got the frequency.”
Air traffic controller: “Okay, you’re asking if you’re on the approach. I don’t do the approach, arrivals does that. So did arrivals give you the approach for 06R?”
British Airways pilot: “They gave the approach for 06R, affirm, fully established.”
Air traffic controller: “Okay, so you were asking if you had the approach and you have been given the approach, so Speedbird 9ZY, number two, cleared to land 06R.”

Once the plane was on the ground, the British Airways pilot asked for a phone number to call, to speak to the supervisor. He ended up getting a bit of a runaround there, as well as some criticism on the frequency for talking for so long.

The air traffic controller has such an unnecessary attitude

Air traffic controllers have incredibly stressful jobs, so I can never make sense of when they intentionally make their lives more difficult than necessary. For those less familiar with air traffic control, what actually happened here? Let me explain:

• When the British Airways pilot first reached out to the tower controller, he was obviously confused, because the controller simply responded with “continue,” without mentioning the callsign (the air traffic controller should always use callsigns, because he could’ve just as easily been referring to another plane)
• The British Airways pilot then slightly misspoke, and asked if they were cleared for the approach; the tower controller doesn’t issue approach instructions but only issues landing clearance, but the pilot’s intention was clear (like “can you confirm the ‘continue’ was intended for Speedbird 9ZY, and that we can continue our approach?”)
• But then the air traffic controller became even more of a smartass, and told him to go back to the arrivals frequency, even though the pilot obviously knew they had approach clearance, but just wanted to be sure that the air traffic controller was acknowledging their transmissions
• Then the air traffic controller outright ignored his request to get the frequency for approach, so that he could scold the pilot

This is bizarre. The air traffic controller was playing a pride game here, wanting to exert his dominance over the pilot. But seriously, why make this kind of extra work for yourself? Did he really start his day thinking “how can I make someone’s day worse today?” Do they train these guys at JFK, or…?

Now, I also thought it was inappropriate for the British Airways pilot to have the lengthy conversation on frequency, after asking for a phone number to call. That should’ve happened off frequency.

Bottom line

A Toronto air traffic controller and British Airways pilot got into a rather heated exchange, after the controller wanted to pick a fight for no good reason. The controller wasn’t using the British Airways plane’s callsign, as he should have, and this caused the British Airways pilot to seek clarification. But rather than clarifying things, the controller made things more complicated, to prove a point.

What do you make of this air traffic control interaction?