Narrative:

This report is not about any specific incident per se; but rather about the overall degradation of the quality and professionalism of the air traffic control system. I have described several incidents below only to back up my opinion. All events that necessitated have already been reported. I have noticed over the past three years a serious spike in the number of TA's and RA's I have received as well as the number of rude comments from ATC. What prompted me to write this is a 'monitor vertical speed' RA we received recently while cleared for; and stabilized on the ILS 08 bur. I thought when cleared for an ILS; ATC is responsible for separating the aircraft on the ILS from other traffic. Fortunately this RA did not result in a go-around; but in a separate incident recently in bur it did. In this incident; ATC cleared us for the visual; once again; to 08 in bur and we received a RA from traffic that was never called out to us; we went around. While on the downwind for 08; ATC tried to slam dunk us and while doing so; we received a TA. We were able to visually acquire this aircraft and land. However; it was very stressful having ATC try to pressure us into a short approach following a RA induced go-around while vectoring us into VFR traffic. This is becoming normal operations at bur. During another recent incident; we were en route at FL290 when we noticed TCAS traffic coming head on with us at FL290. We thought that to be very odd and not one second after that thought entered my mind; ATC; literally yelling; told the other traffic to turn right and climb and told us to turn right and descend. The transmission was partially blocked so ATC had to re-issue the instruction. Both of us complied with the instructions. While doing so; the open white diamond filled; then turned into a yellow circle; and issued a TA in literally one second. The next ATC transmission was a male voice; versus the female voice that issued the panicked instructions. I'm assuming there was a controller change. In yet one more recent example; we were cleared for and stabilized on the ILS 24R lax when ATC gave us an instruction to turn right and descend. The instruction made no sense so we questioned ATC. Unable to get in a word in on the congested frequency; we complied. ATC then gave us another strange instruction; but once again there was way too much frequency congestion to verify the clearance so we complied. We then received a 'climb; climb' RA and complied with it. ATC started yelling at us and asking what we were doing; but finally cleared us for a visual. I did some research on this one and it turns out there was another carrier with a nearly identical call sign as ours on the gorman arrival at the exact same time. ATC was giving instructions to them; but saying our call sign. The RA was with another carrier and aircraft type who also received a RA as a result.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier pilot provided several examples of what was listed as the overall degradation of the quality and professionalism of the Air Traffic Control System.

Narrative: This report is not about any specific incident per se; but rather about the overall degradation of the quality and professionalism of the Air Traffic Control system. I have described several incidents below only to back up my opinion. All events that necessitated have already been reported. I have noticed over the past three years a serious spike in the number of TA's and RA's I have received as well as the number of rude comments from ATC. What prompted me to write this is a 'Monitor Vertical Speed' RA we received recently while cleared for; and stabilized on the ILS 08 BUR. I thought when cleared for an ILS; ATC is responsible for separating the aircraft on the ILS from other traffic. Fortunately this RA did not result in a go-around; but in a separate incident recently in BUR it did. In this incident; ATC cleared us for the visual; once again; to 08 in BUR and we received a RA from traffic that was never called out to us; we went around. While on the downwind for 08; ATC tried to slam dunk us and while doing so; we received a TA. We were able to visually acquire this aircraft and land. However; it was very stressful having ATC try to pressure us into a short approach following a RA induced go-around while vectoring us into VFR traffic. This is becoming normal operations at BUR. During another recent incident; we were en route at FL290 when we noticed TCAS traffic coming head on with us at FL290. We thought that to be very odd and not one second after that thought entered my mind; ATC; literally yelling; told the other traffic to turn right and climb and told us to turn right and descend. The transmission was partially blocked so ATC had to re-issue the instruction. Both of us complied with the instructions. While doing so; the open white diamond filled; then turned into a yellow circle; and issued a TA in literally one second. The next ATC transmission was a male voice; versus the female voice that issued the panicked instructions. I'm assuming there was a Controller change. In yet one more recent example; we were cleared for and stabilized on the ILS 24R LAX when ATC gave us an instruction to turn right and descend. The instruction made no sense so we questioned ATC. Unable to get in a word in on the congested frequency; we complied. ATC then gave us another strange instruction; but once again there was way too much frequency congestion to verify the clearance so we complied. We then received a 'Climb; Climb' RA and complied with it. ATC started yelling at us and asking what we were doing; but finally cleared us for a visual. I did some research on this one and it turns out there was another carrier with a nearly identical call sign as ours on the GORMAN Arrival at the exact same time. ATC was giving instructions to them; but saying our call sign. The RA was with another carrier and aircraft type who also received a RA as a result.

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.