Any real world pilots care to comment on the situation? Seems BA need low vis ops below a certain RVR, I could understand it for landing - but not sure why you'd need it for take-off? Also at 2.56 BA says he needs 1800m, but don't they report airport visibility in statute miles and feet in the USA? So at 3.36 when the BA pilot is given take off, touch down RVR 1600, roll out 1800, is that meters or feet?

My take on this. Once again, this highlights the persistent issue at many major U.S. airports: ATC often fails to provide clear, concise, and standardized responses. At KJFK in particular, there is an increasing number of controllers with questionable accents and limited proficiency in phraseology, which creates unnecessary confusion in situations exactly like this.

Before the British Airways crew received clearance, they already had the ATIS — voice or digital — stating whether “Low Visibility Operations in progress,” “Low Visibility Procedures in operation,” or specific RVR values were active. We know whether LVO is in effect before the aircraft moves. There are no surprises. The operation is then conducted strictly in accordance with the airport 10-9 pages and the air carrier’s operational certification and procedures.

The ATC response here was crystal clear: NO LVO.

That immediately opens another issue entirely. If ATC is operating below standard visibility values without officially declaring LVO, that is extremely questionable. Even more concerning is how everyone simply goes along with it without challenging the inconsistency or asking why standard procedures are apparently being bypassed.

I attached the 10-9 data for that runway.

Just for info a couple of responses on the PPrune forum, from pilots discussing the same event there:

I feel this fella's pain as I was once in the same situation trying to land in pee-poor weather at Kennedy..... except the motion lotion was depleting at quite a rate as I worked at getting confirmation of protections being in place for a Cat III autoland. The answer was.....that nobody was prepared to say!
Rather than turning into a glider we shot the approach and landed without incident or further issues. Turned out when I rang the Company Duty Pilot he said he would have done the same as I did.
The upshot is, in The States they assume you know that its SOP for LVPs to be in force when minima drop below Cat I. Why can't they just add a one-liner to the ATIS FFS😡?
Anyway, I learned about flying in the USA from that. Hope this is of use.

The correct question would have been "are low visibility procedures in operation?" not "are you declaring LVOs" which are the procedures that aircraft operators follow. However I suspect the JFK controller knew exactly what was being asked but was too pig headed and up his own rear end to give a sensible and useful answer.

Just for info a couple of responses on the PPrune forum, from pilots discussing the same event there:

The upshot is, in The States they assume you know that its SOP for LVPs to be in force when minima drop below Cat I. Why can't they just add a one-liner to the ATIS FFS😡?
Anyway, I learned about flying in the USA from that. Hope this is of use.

Interesting, regulatory requirements mandate that the information be in ATIS. Usually, when vis is below 1,200 FT RVR, or otherwise specified, and as it was reported by the controller, 1,000 RVR, the airport (if certified) must have and use LVO/SMGCS procedures in effect, and these must also be broadcast in ATIS.

Also, for pilots, that information on the ATIS is a legal trigger. It warns the flight crew that they must transition from standard airport charts to specialized Low Visibility Taxi Charts. It also tells them that certain safety features, such as geographic position tracking (ASDE-X) and physically illuminated stop bars, are now actively monitored by ATC.

There are two big problems here: inadequate ATC training and pilots being afraid to hold ATC to the standards. Otherwise, ATC will give you a number right away when we are wrong.

I hope you filed an ASAP report (we rely heavily on it) and that the CP on duty is no longer there. Perhaps he was promoted to DO?

Edited May 22May 22 by LRBS

when I had worked in flight planning and each time a new person started , in order to show how bad the ATC is/was in the USA, Id ring up somewhere like Denver (where we didn't fly to) and say "hello I'm calling from Virgin Atlantic in London and Id like to request the CID number please for our flight VS706 (fictional) From Denver to London. They would then would then say "sure here you go its 892". Madness. We didnt fly to Denver and we didnt have a VS/VIR706

Id then ring another atc centre say in Texas and this time make up an airline, flight number and destination, just to see if they would give me a CID number. So id come up with some ridiculous UK airline name called "Air Sandringham" or "Buckingham Queen Airlines" something really stupid. Id put on a ridiculous over the top "british accent" call up Texas and ask for the CID number for the Buckingham 773. 9 times out of 10 they'd would give you a cid number and not even question it because they didnt want to look incompetent by saying, we dont have an Air Sandringham or a Buckingham 773 in the system. They would just give you a random number and youd thank them and hang up.

so it doesnt surprise me the controller couldnt even get the callsign correct