Narrative:

On the kepec 3 arrival to las; la center gave us a clearance to cross clarr at 13;000 feet and 250 KIAS. Upon checking in with las vegas approach; we were given a revised descent altitude of 10;000 feet. About 10 miles west of clarr and level at 10;000 feet we were given the following clearance: 'cleared direct kimme waypoint and rejoin the arrival there.' we programmed; verified and turned direct kimme and in doing it removed the clarr restriction including the 250 knot speed. About two to three minutes later ATC queried us as to our airspeed. I responded that we were doing 290 knots. He asked; 'who assigned you that speed?' I replied; 'nobody;' as I was kind of confused by the question as we were not assigned that speed. That was just the speed the captain had chosen at that time. He informed us that there was a 250 knot restriction on the arrival and that we should have been doing that. He then gave us relief on that restriction but reminded us that next time we needed to comply with the speed. I responded back that we were given a 250 knot restriction at clarr but that we never actually crossed clarr so there was no place to meet that restriction. Therein lies the problem. We were given a clearance to deviate from the published arrival course with a specific clearance to rejoin the arrival at kimme. We had not reached the point of the speed restriction so there was no way we could cross that point at the previously cleared speed. We do this type of thing all the time.when cleared to a point that bypasses the restricted point; it deletes the restriction. That has always been my understanding and that is the way it is done in practice every single day of line operations. That was the way we both understood it and neither of us had any inkling that we would be questioned about it. Since ATC gave us a revised clearance that deleted the restriction to cross clarr; and since that deleted restriction also deleted the speed restriction at clarr; they should have given the specific speed assignment that they wanted. For example; 'cleared direct kimme; rejoin the arrival there; and maintain 250 knots.'

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737NG First Officer reported ATC expected them to honor a speed restriction on an arrival associated with a fix they did not fly over.

Narrative: On the KEPEC 3 Arrival to LAS; LA Center gave us a clearance to cross CLARR at 13;000 feet and 250 KIAS. Upon checking in with Las Vegas Approach; we were given a revised descent altitude of 10;000 feet. About 10 miles west of CLARR and level at 10;000 feet we were given the following clearance: 'cleared direct KIMME waypoint and REJOIN the arrival there.' We programmed; verified and turned direct KIMME and in doing it removed the CLARR restriction including the 250 knot speed. About two to three minutes later ATC queried us as to our airspeed. I responded that we were doing 290 knots. He asked; 'Who assigned you that speed?' I replied; 'Nobody;' as I was kind of confused by the question as we were not assigned that speed. That was just the speed the Captain had chosen at that time. He informed us that there was a 250 knot restriction on the arrival and that we should have been doing that. He then gave us relief on that restriction but reminded us that next time we needed to comply with the speed. I responded back that we were given a 250 knot restriction at CLARR but that we never actually crossed CLARR so there was no place to meet that restriction. Therein lies the problem. We were given a clearance to deviate from the published arrival course with a specific clearance to REJOIN the arrival at KIMME. We had not reached the point of the speed restriction so there was no way we could cross that point at the previously cleared speed. We do this type of thing all the time.When cleared to a point that bypasses the restricted point; it deletes the restriction. That has always been my understanding and that is the way it is done in practice every single day of line operations. That was the way we both understood it and neither of us had any inkling that we would be questioned about it. Since ATC gave us a revised clearance that deleted the restriction to cross CLARR; and since that deleted restriction also deleted the speed restriction at CLARR; they should have given the specific speed assignment that they wanted. For example; 'cleared direct KIMME; rejoin the arrival there; and maintain 250 knots.'

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.