Noe wrote:
Personally I think would ask “Approaching , Confirm cleared LAM3A” or something like that.
Exactly. Although if you are talking to a radar controller no need to tell them where you are.
ATC sectors have agreements between them about where to send and where to expect traffic. I’ve observed a 2 hours shift of the departure sector for Duesseldorf EDDL a while ago. They always send people to the same waypoints as the neighboring sectors expect them at those points.
I still don’t understand though why the don’t say:
Cleared XXXXX arrival
or
Cleared XXXXX arrival, expect radar vectors to XXXX
or
Cleared XXXXX arrival, expect [whatever]
… and then they can just make the clearance void later by issuing a DCT to or a Vector.
It would just avoid the confusion in case of lost comm’s.
Its all about the legal difference between “cleared” and “expect” !
I completely agree, petakas. I do not understand why they cannot just issue textbook clearances rather than leaving so much uncertainty.
Aviathor wrote:
I completely agree, petakas. I do not understand why they cannot just issue textbook clearances rather than leaving so much uncertainty.
Because this is the UK. It would be too simple to just do that.
What I related was not the UK… but France. Same thing, but different. 
My understanding is that there is a lot of national cultural and legal baggage involved. Best to think for yourself as much as possible and ask – even if it means to clarify the obvious. And be assertive. The ATCO is supposed to form a team with the PIC.
Oh and you can hear quite a lot of discussions over the radio between airline crews and ATC. It gets better when they both use their native language :-)
Aviathor wrote:
Same thing, but different.
Really? I can’t remember ever being told “expect xxx arrival” in France. It is either “cleared xxx arrival” or radar vectors, just like (almost) everywhere else. What they like to do though is let you wait for the last possible moment with the clearance. When flying to Paris from the east, “EPL” is the last route waypoint and the beginning of either SID (Epinal is 150NM away from Paris – too far to receive Le Bourget ATIS so we do not know which runway and SID to excpect!). They usually wait until our FMS has counted down the time to EPL to the last 30 seconds before telling us what to do next. And the frequency is often so busy that you can not ask on your own.
what_next wrote:
Really?
Well, I live here… It may be a new thing, but I have gotten the “expect” on several occasions lately, from Paris, I believe, when approaching my last en-route waypoint.
