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I got my pilot's license in the Bay Area and transited SFO's class bravo frequently. The region has one of the world's most complex airspaces (a B, two Cs, and

I got my pilot's license in the Bay Area and transited SFO's class bravo frequently. The region has one of the world's most complex airspaces (a B, two Cs, and a crap-ton of Ds), and SFO has a mind-boggling amount of traffic for an airport of its size. Based on my lived experience in that airspace, I think ATC did the best they could in a tough position, and I think that Lufthansa asking for special treatment is the asshole move. If they demand ILS in VFR conditions, they should schedule their arrival times to less-busy times.

mandevil 3y ago
They normally do- this flight left MUC two hours late which was why it was part of the VFR landing sequence on this one day and is not normally a problem.
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  And the flight is twelve hours, with a filed flight plan. None of the controllers were even on-shift when SFO knew they'd need to have an ILS slot for the flight. That's why the pilot is exasperated when he finds out there isn't one. It's like calling a year in advance for a dinner reservation and showing up and having to wait 45 minutes for your table "because it's a really busy night."
  - vkou 3y ago
    > It's like calling a year in advance for a dinner reservation and showing up and having to wait 45 minutes for your table "because it's a really busy night." It's more like showing up two weeks late to your dinner reservation, on a Valentine's Day Friday night rush, and being upset that you don't have an accurate ETA to get seated.
  - dodobirdlord 3y ago
    It’s not the ATCs job to get the plane down at the primary airport, on the pilot’s preferred schedule, in accordance with the airline’s policy of using ILS for landing at SFO at night. Any two would be a satisfactory outcome, and it sounds like the pilot could in fact have picked any two (well, it sounds like Lufthansa policy prohibited just getting in the VFR queue). Nobody was ever in danger and the worst case scenario was that the plane lands at Oakland, which was always a possibility from the moment they took off. If landing at Oakland is such a disaster Lufthansa could have canceled the flight once it became clear that they were running 3 hours late, had missed their originally planned slot, and would be landing at night.
    - jojobas 3y ago
      Yes it is, according to FAA recommendations.
chris_va 3y ago
I also fly a bit in the bay area ... ATC is supposed to accommodate to the best of their ability. Accommodating here could have been just waiting for a natural gap (which is what I think happened), but I think ATC should have just called Oakland center immediately and had a gap created for 10-20 minutes in the future. It is not like they were the only aircraft on the ILS approach that evening... Though, as I am not a norcal controller, maybe that is against policy.
- CaliforniaKarl 3y ago
  The video posted by u/hansenq showed what flows were like, with traffic from the east sequenced as far out as Salt Lake City. It probably would’ve needed coordination with Oakland, LA, and Salt Lake centers
  - KennyBlanken 3y ago
    This flight came from Germany. They had hours of notice to find it an ILS slot in the pattern.
    - trentnelson 3y ago
      That’s not how ATC works. First come, first served.
      - jojobas 3y ago
        That doesn't add up with far-out sequencing. As far as I understand all they needed to do was to move one plane down from the parallel pair and increase lateral spacing a tiny bit, all the way back while the plane in question was somewhere over Utah.
      - throwbadubadu 3y ago
        No, that's also not how it should work. Airports have a certain capacity, that's why you use slot allocations at crowded ones. You can say that day was so botched that they blew the one plane in fav of all the others, but that is not how it should work, telling a plane with an allocated slot you cannot even have a realistic estimate when we will fit you in.
kabes 3y ago
Lufthansa does what the FAA recommends and SFO had air canada almost landing on the taxiway because of the visual approach not too long ago. So calling it an asshole move is turning things around.
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
  So punish everyone because of Air Canada's fuck-up?
  - neom 3y ago
    As they say, FAA rules are written in blood. https://www.cfinotebook.net/notebook/rules-and-regulations/rules-and-regulations https://www.cfinotebook.net/notebook/rules-and-regulations/r...
  - timerol 3y ago
    It's not punishment. The reason air travel is so safe is because every near-miss is root-caused and policies are put in place to prevent the same cause from resulting in a future accident.
    - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
      I see. So this policy has been imposed on all class-B airports? Also, it's not a "near-miss." It's a near-hit or near-disaster.
  - koyote 3y ago
    There have been two major incidents around landing at SFO in the last decade, one involving fatalities. Prioritising safety by requesting to land using ILS after a 12 hour flight should not be seen as 'punishing' everyone else.
    - nerdponx 3y ago
      My understanding is that the Lufthansa crew could/should have requested ILS much sooner in order to give ATC time to figure it out.
alistairSH 3y ago
I think that Lufthansa asking for special treatment is the asshole move Lufthansa’s rules shouldn’t have been a surprise to anybody here. The route isn’t new and operates on the edge of daylight much of the year. And IIRC, the FAA actually recommends foreign airlines adopt visual approach procedures at SFO, so … how does that make Lufthansa the assholes?
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > And IIRC, the FAA actually recommends foreign airlines adopt visual approach procedures at SFO, so … how does that make Lufthansa the assholes? In 2013, temporarily: > They also can use an instrument system called a glide slope indicator, although that has been out of service in San Francisco since June 1 because of ongoing runway improvements. > The FAA said all foreign carriers should continue to use alternate instrument approaches until the glide slopes return to service in late August. * https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/faa-tells-foreign-pilots-to-use-gps-when-landing-at-sfo/1950561/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/faa-tells-foreign-pilo...
- ExoticPearTree 3y ago
  Because it is an FAA recommendation, not a rule. Lufthansa decided that they only do ILS at night and NorCal was not in a position to give them that in the near future because it would disrupt the flow of airplanes that could visual approaches at night and require less separation. I am not 100% sure about the following but I think ATC instructions trumps company rules any day.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    Understood, but I don’t think that makes Lufthansa the asshole here. Between Lufthansa seemingly unaware of this situation in NorCal, and the ATC being prickly about it (the indefinite holding when they clearly had no intention of slotting them in), there’s plenty of assholes being assholes.

mandevil 3y ago

They normally do- this flight left MUC two hours late which was why it was part of the VFR landing sequence on this one day and is not normally a problem.

KennyBlanken 3y ago
And the flight is twelve hours, with a filed flight plan. None of the controllers were even on-shift when SFO knew they'd need to have an ILS slot for the flight. That's why the pilot is exasperated when he finds out there isn't one. It's like calling a year in advance for a dinner reservation and showing up and having to wait 45 minutes for your table "because it's a really busy night."
- vkou 3y ago
  > It's like calling a year in advance for a dinner reservation and showing up and having to wait 45 minutes for your table "because it's a really busy night." It's more like showing up two weeks late to your dinner reservation, on a Valentine's Day Friday night rush, and being upset that you don't have an accurate ETA to get seated.
- dodobirdlord 3y ago
  It’s not the ATCs job to get the plane down at the primary airport, on the pilot’s preferred schedule, in accordance with the airline’s policy of using ILS for landing at SFO at night. Any two would be a satisfactory outcome, and it sounds like the pilot could in fact have picked any two (well, it sounds like Lufthansa policy prohibited just getting in the VFR queue). Nobody was ever in danger and the worst case scenario was that the plane lands at Oakland, which was always a possibility from the moment they took off. If landing at Oakland is such a disaster Lufthansa could have canceled the flight once it became clear that they were running 3 hours late, had missed their originally planned slot, and would be landing at night.
  - jojobas 3y ago
    Yes it is, according to FAA recommendations.

chris_va 3y ago

I also fly a bit in the bay area ... ATC is supposed to accommodate to the best of their ability. Accommodating here could have been just waiting for a natural gap (which is what I think happened), but I think ATC should have just called Oakland center immediately and had a gap created for 10-20 minutes in the future. It is not like they were the only aircraft on the ILS approach that evening... Though, as I am not a norcal controller, maybe that is against policy.

CaliforniaKarl 3y ago
The video posted by u/hansenq showed what flows were like, with traffic from the east sequenced as far out as Salt Lake City. It probably would’ve needed coordination with Oakland, LA, and Salt Lake centers
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  This flight came from Germany. They had hours of notice to find it an ILS slot in the pattern.
  - trentnelson 3y ago
    That’s not how ATC works. First come, first served.
    - jojobas 3y ago
      That doesn't add up with far-out sequencing. As far as I understand all they needed to do was to move one plane down from the parallel pair and increase lateral spacing a tiny bit, all the way back while the plane in question was somewhere over Utah.
    - throwbadubadu 3y ago
      No, that's also not how it should work. Airports have a certain capacity, that's why you use slot allocations at crowded ones. You can say that day was so botched that they blew the one plane in fav of all the others, but that is not how it should work, telling a plane with an allocated slot you cannot even have a realistic estimate when we will fit you in.

kabes 3y ago

Lufthansa does what the FAA recommends and SFO had air canada almost landing on the taxiway because of the visual approach not too long ago. So calling it an asshole move is turning things around.

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
So punish everyone because of Air Canada's fuck-up?
- neom 3y ago
  As they say, FAA rules are written in blood. https://www.cfinotebook.net/notebook/rules-and-regulations/rules-and-regulations https://www.cfinotebook.net/notebook/rules-and-regulations/r...
- timerol 3y ago
  It's not punishment. The reason air travel is so safe is because every near-miss is root-caused and policies are put in place to prevent the same cause from resulting in a future accident.
  - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
    I see. So this policy has been imposed on all class-B airports? Also, it's not a "near-miss." It's a near-hit or near-disaster.
- koyote 3y ago
  There have been two major incidents around landing at SFO in the last decade, one involving fatalities. Prioritising safety by requesting to land using ILS after a 12 hour flight should not be seen as 'punishing' everyone else.
  - nerdponx 3y ago
    My understanding is that the Lufthansa crew could/should have requested ILS much sooner in order to give ATC time to figure it out.

alistairSH 3y ago

I think that Lufthansa asking for special treatment is the asshole move Lufthansa’s rules shouldn’t have been a surprise to anybody here. The route isn’t new and operates on the edge of daylight much of the year. And IIRC, the FAA actually recommends foreign airlines adopt visual approach procedures at SFO, so … how does that make Lufthansa the assholes?

throw0101b 3y ago
> And IIRC, the FAA actually recommends foreign airlines adopt visual approach procedures at SFO, so … how does that make Lufthansa the assholes? In 2013, temporarily: > They also can use an instrument system called a glide slope indicator, although that has been out of service in San Francisco since June 1 because of ongoing runway improvements. > The FAA said all foreign carriers should continue to use alternate instrument approaches until the glide slopes return to service in late August. * https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/faa-tells-foreign-pilots-to-use-gps-when-landing-at-sfo/1950561/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/faa-tells-foreign-pilo...
ExoticPearTree 3y ago
Because it is an FAA recommendation, not a rule. Lufthansa decided that they only do ILS at night and NorCal was not in a position to give them that in the near future because it would disrupt the flow of airplanes that could visual approaches at night and require less separation. I am not 100% sure about the following but I think ATC instructions trumps company rules any day.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Understood, but I don’t think that makes Lufthansa the asshole here. Between Lufthansa seemingly unaware of this situation in NorCal, and the ATC being prickly about it (the indefinite holding when they clearly had no intention of slotting them in), there’s plenty of assholes being assholes.