A controller described a common mistake made at ZHU when a descent is issued to an aircraft that is ...

Narrative:

Ninety nine percent of all aus arrivals are at FL220 and below. Ninety nine percent of all sat arrivals are FL240 and above. For the aus arrivals we have a dump box that gives us control for descent with ZFW. Every once in a while a sat arrival will come down from ZFW at FL220 or below. Invariably; since we are so used to aus arrivals being at that altitude; the bsm controller will descend this aircraft once it gets in the dump box. But; since it's a sat arrival; we don't have control to do this. This is a common mix up that houston center controllers do over and over and it occurs almost every day. I did exactly this with an air carrier. I assumed he was an aus arrival and descended him in the dump box but he was really going to sat. We need something other than the airport destination identifier in this case. We need something to indicate that this is an unusual altitude for an aircraft going to sat.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Controller described a common mistake made at ZHU when a descent is issued to an aircraft that is thought to be arriving at AUS when it in fact is landing at SAT.

Narrative: Ninety nine percent of all AUS arrivals are at FL220 and below. Ninety nine percent of all SAT arrivals are FL240 and above. For the AUS arrivals we have a dump box that gives us control for descent with ZFW. Every once in a while a SAT arrival will come down from ZFW at FL220 or below. Invariably; since we are so used to AUS arrivals being at that altitude; the BSM Controller will descend this aircraft once it gets in the dump box. But; since it's a SAT arrival; we don't have control to do this. This is a common mix up that Houston Center Controllers do over and over and it occurs almost every day. I did exactly this with an air carrier. I assumed he was an AUS arrival and descended him in the dump box but he was really going to SAT. We need something other than the airport destination identifier in this case. We need something to indicate that this is an unusual altitude for an aircraft going to SAT.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.

Attributes
ACN	871436
Time
Date	201001
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	ZHU.ARTCC
State Reference	TX
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	MD-83
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Descent
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Enroute
Qualification	Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

A controller described a common mistake made at ZHU when a descent is issued to an aircraft that is thought to be arriving at aus when it in fact is landing at sat.