On Mon, 11 Oct 2010 21:34:09 +0000, Peter Purdie wrote:

Large areas of airspace are Class A-D reserved for IFR traffic under
full ATC control, to ensure Caommercial Air Trafic passenger safety.

Then you get low-cost carriers saving money by flying into small
airports without such airspace, and taking fuel-saving short cuts
through non-protected airspace.

It strikes me that if a low-cost carrier's airliner deliberately
transited uncontrolled airspace which is known to be regularly used by
gliders or GA aircraft that don't carry transponders and there was a
collision then the brown storm is more likely to envelop the ATC pilot,
who would be seen to have deliberately put his passengers at risk, than
the glider pilot.

If it further turned out that doing this was encouraged by the airline's
fuel saving policies then the storm would spread to encompass the airline
too on the basis that they had put profit before passenger safety.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |