The article seems to be misleading a little, because it was not 10 min in total.
Lufthansa asked for ILS, was put on hold for 20 min, then ATC promised another 10 minutes, and then 14 more min passed and this is when the pilot got frustrated.
Lufthansa asked for ILS, was put on hold for 20 min, then ATC promised another 10 minutes, and then 14 more min passed and this is when the pilot got frustrated.
Honestly I'm a little confused by some of the sentiment around this situation. Air traffic control is a service that airlines pay for, not little gods that cannot be questioned.
That is 100% out of line. But the ATC handled it super professionally and offered them vectors to their alternate. The article suggests that ATC should've let the pilots declare a fuel emergency instead?
On top of that, the idea that the controller has carte blanche to "call [his] bluff" is patently absurd. So is the framing of diverting them to their alternate airport as "calling a bluff", when diverting to Oakland is exactly what the controller should have done from the beginning instead of giving them an ultimately wrong estimate and forgetting they were there.
Then again this is a board targeting the software dev industry, so I don't know why I'm surprised.
The ATC being 4 minutes "late" for a callback during the busiest landing time does not mean the plane was "forgotten". 34 minutes is not very long to spend on hold, planes carry hours worth of reserve fuel. And estimates are just estimates, not a promise (like the article framed it as).
Honestly this is akin to someone showing up to the most popular restaurant in New York 2 hours late for their reservation, asking for a VIP room, then getting huffy when they don't have a VIP room within 30 minutes and then being angry they were offered a seat at the restaurant next door. (apparently the pilot, on the PA to passengers, was talking about taking legal action against ATC on the way to Oakland... ridiculous...)