Luau at the tower

Well, sort of - we did wear Hawaiian shirts (some even sported leis) and have food. But it wasn't about Hawaii; instead of "luau" it was "LUAW." Yes, you read that right. LUAW: As in "Line Up And Wait."

Beginning today, controllers in the US are no longer using the phraseology "Position and hold" to instruct an aircraft to take the runway in preparation for departure. Some of you may remember that this used to be "Taxi into position and hold", and in fact we still often used the moniker TIPH in guidelines, procedures, or training documentation.


The new phraseology is "Line up and wait", words that are already standard in most of the rest of the world. This change will bring US controllers a bit closer to our counterparts elsewhere, who have been applying ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) standard phraseology for some time now.


Some have asked why the FAA is doing this (while others have asked why we are just now getting around to it), and the short answer is to reduce confusion. While English is the standardized international language in aviation, for many pilots at LAX it is not their first language. Up to now, we've used the phrase "Position and hold" to tell a pilot to get on the runway in preparation for departure but not begin the roll for takeoff. We have also used the phrases "hold in position" and "hold your position" for other instructions. When you consider that sentence structure in English differs from that of some other languages, it doesn't require much imagination to see the possibility for this to go wrong, especially when non-native English speaking pilots are involved. For anyone who desires a pop culture example, I refer you to the Star Wars movie series: think of Yoda's non-standard sentence structure:

"Always in motion is the future."
"Lost a planet Master Obi-Wan has. How embarrassing."
"Agree with you the council does. Your apprentice Skywalker will be."
"Blind we are, if creation of this clone army we could not see."
"When 900 years you reach, look as good, you will not."

I have personally experienced many situations where the pilot was told to hold his position, and he interpreted the instruction as "position and hold." Sometimes we caught it when he read it back wrong; other times the first indication we had was when the airplane started moving. In those instances, if we were lucky we were able to get the pilot to stop before the airplane crossed the line marking the runway; if we weren't so lucky then another airplane may have had to go around or change to another runway (or in one situation I saw, abort the takeoff).

In this photo, the Delta A330 is about to land on Runway 24 Left;
Southwest is waiting to depart.

In a subsequent shot, Southwest is now in position on runway 24 left while World is about to touch down on runway 24 right.

I can think of at least two advantages to the new phraseology. The first is that "Line up and wait" sounds nothing like "hold in position" or "hold your position," both of which phrases will continue in use. Secondly, "Line up and wait" is what most of the foreign pilots are already accustomed to hearing. In either case, there seems to be less opportunity for confusion. And reducing confusion is what it's all about, because a confused or muddled pilot is much more likely to accidentally put the aircraft on the runway when it shouldn't be there.