Concern Regarding EGLL Tower Operations – Extended Delays on 27R

ATC
1

I’d like to raise a concern regarding the current tower operations at EGLL.

Now, multiple aircraft—including mine—were held on the 27R taxiway for over 15 minutes with no takeoffs being cleared, despite what appeared to be large gaps in departing traffic. There was no visible sequencing issue or inbound congestion that could justify such extended holding.

While I respect the effort of our volunteer ATC team, this situation felt like a significant operational inefficiency. It created unnecessary congestion, and several pilots on frequency were understandably confused or frustrated. If there was a specific reason for the hold, it would have been helpful to communicate that through a broadcast or progressive instructions.

I’m genuinely curious to understand what might have caused this. Was it a technical issue, controller overload, or something else? Feedback would be appreciated so we can all better understand the logic behind such decisions—and hopefully improve the experience going forward.

Thanks

2

Good day fellow pilot. If this occurred on the training server, unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about it.:sad_but_relieved_face:. However, I would like to thank you for your patience while on the training server. I also would like to thank you for your professionalism. See you in the skies. Safe flying.

3

Hello, @BrianHao
Hope your day went well.

We are not able to communicate a “gate hold” via the broadcasting dialogue. The gate hold was mentioned in the ATIS. Every aircraft was held as instructed from another aircraft because of work overload. Too much arrivals on 27R and L and the departure queue was starting to block 27R exit taxi ways. The use of gate hold was to ensure no other aircraft were permitted to taxi or pushback. We were trying to calm down the amount of traffic going to 1 runway.

Majority of aircraft’s that were on the taxi way when gate hold was in effect were allowed to taxi. After that I accepted no one else. There was no inefficiency, no one was following any Ground or Tower instructions despite receiving PFI / PFIR.

The time tower went offline, I was holding people short of the runway , because of the arriving traffic or controller change.

Hope there wasn’t any confusion here.

(Are you referring to training server or Expert) - if Training server then absolutely nothing we could do to help you there.

1 Like