I think it is necessary a further, final, definitive, conclusive, ultimate explanation in order to avoid misunderstandings and to give, finally, the correct information to the FTers and to the aviation professionals who posted in this thread.

This is the link to the controversial DM article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-airports.html

And these are some considerations and comments regarding the most important paragraphs of the above mentioned article:

Planes carrying more first class passengers may soon be given landing priority over other flights in a move that would radically overhaul the current 'first come, first served' rule, it has been claimed.

Obviously this is rubbish, and the information given is misleading, but only regarding the “first class” or status priority.

As more advanced technology becomes available to air traffic controllers, airlines will be able to designate specific flights within their own fleets to jump the queues.

This is true and exactly what I reported in my previous posts. What I wrote, and also the info on the article, is based on projects or trials performed under the SESAR supervision in order to avoid delays and maintain an orderly flow of the air traffic. Where delays cannot be avoided (best example is LHR) the aim is to manage them enroute within a radius that in the case of London airspace is 500 NM and for the most part of European airports is within 200 NM implementing some new tecniques (like the advanced sequencing using the “time to lose” or “time to gain” concept over determined enroute gates). When and where these new concepts or new technologies will be implemented is not yet clear, but I can imagine not earlier than 5 years, so the adverb “soon” in the first paragraph is improper and quite optimistic.
The most important aspect of this is that airlines want to have a word in the sequencing process (luckyly not the last word).

This would be beneficial for flights carrying large numbers of business or first class passengers, or planes with customers connecting to other flights.

I am not an airline manager or a dispatcher but I hope this statement will be applicable only for the connecting passengers. As an ATCO I will do my best to penalize a flight if I discover it has received priority only due to a large number of first class passengers.

Richard Deakin, the chief executive of National Air Traffic Services (NATS), said the introduction of remote technology, sensors and infrared cameras would increase the amount of data air controllers received from flights…

I can’t understand the relevance of this statement, being this applicable to a different project, in particular the Remote Towers currently being tested in Sweden.

Controversially, this would in turn allow controllers to prioritise flights at the request of the airlines.
He said: 'It might tell the controller how many passengers need to make a connecting flight.
'The controller can then make more informed decisions, perhaps giving it extra priority to make sure the passengers definitely make their connection.

True, this is what airlines ask, but this kind of priority is possible only for aircraft of the same airline or airline group (IAG?) and only within a strict time window. And, most important, at ATC discretion.

'And the commercial applications become obvious - tiered or premium services, giving priority to frequent flyers, loyal customers and high-value customers.'

Not sure an ATCO will apply or endorse this concept, even if many ATCOs, myself included, are elite members or fly business or first class. The only exception I can remember was the Concorde: usually it received a “silent priority” over other traffic, but it was due to its aerodynamical peculiarities and the difficult to manage big speed reductions on the approach.

Experts have suggested such changes would destroy what has been a basic premise of air traffic management since its inception - that of the first come, first served approach to landing at busy airports.

True, but these changes in the sequencing will be applied (in the not near future) to an aircraft out of ten at the best, only under determined circustances and within a single airline group of flights. So no need to be worried. Anyway, and I can imagine this is a shocking info for people where queing is an art, the first to come, first to serve concept sometimes is not the best system to apply in order to maintain the runway pressure, expecially at busy airports: for exampe when there is a gap in the sequence we use the “advantage of the position” concept and in this case the number 8 can became the number 2 in the sequence or when we have to manage a large amount of heavy and super aircraft we tend to group them together in order to reduce the spacing for the wake turbolence.

I hope this could clarify any doubt and I am sorry to disappoint some very experienced but not properly informed FTers, but in this case the DM article is not totally rubbish (apart the first class passengers): on the contrary the most part of the concepts reported are based on reliable sources and describe what will be the ATC system in the next 10 years..