There are 10,000+ air traffic controllers in the United States, who have incredibly stressful jobs that keep our skies safe. Among those air traffic controllers, there’s one guy at New York Kennedy Airport who has made a name — or perhaps more accurately, a voice — for himself based on his attitude. Here’s the latest example of him exercising his authority to teach a pilot a lesson.
LOT Boeing 787 Dreamliner pilot taught lesson by ATC
This incident happened at around 11PM on November 18, 2025, and involves LOT Polish Airlines flight LO27, which was operating from New York (JFK) to Warsaw (WAW).
As the plane is taxiing out, before it reaches the runway, the LOT pilot tells the air traffic controller that they need two minutes. A minute later, the controller gives the LOT plane takeoff clearance. The LOT pilot responds that they need one more minute for cabin preparations.
Now, it’s worth acknowledging that pilots should be ready to go when they get to the runway, to avoid delaying other planes. But it’s also worth mentioning that this likely happened due to something outside of the control of the pilots, like a passenger getting up or trying to use the lavatory as the plane was about to depart. Furthermore, at 11PM, it was far from rush hour at the airport, so it’s not like there was a queue of 20 planes.
So the air traffic controller gives the LOT plane clearance to enter the runway, and then to exit it a couple of taxiways down, and get back into the takeoff queue. Now, the LOT pilot just reads back the “enter 31L” portion of the instructions, so the air traffic controller responds by once again emphasizing the taxiway instructions.
The LOT pilot responds by saying that they’re now ready to go. Keep in mind that the plane isn’t even on the runway yet, and isn’t delaying any other plane. However, clearly the controller wanted to emphasize that his instructions were “final,” and that no one would question them.
So the air traffic controller responds “no, no, no, we’re not doing this,” and he once again emphasizes that they’ll need to taxi off the runway. This ultimately creates a series of events that only add to congestion, and make things unnecessarily complicated. The LOT pilot had to be handed over to the ground controller, only to then a minute later be handed back to the tower controller.
This air traffic controller loves to prove a point!
As I said above, air traffic controllers have really stressful jobs, and I respect what they do. However, I feel like their jobs are difficult enough, without this guy artificially making them more difficult.
Here’s the thing — the controller was right to instruct the pilots to taxi around if they weren’t ready for takeoff. However, once they said they were ready for takeoff, before even entering the runway, the air traffic controller could’ve just put his pride and ego to the side, and given them takeoff clearance.
There’s simply no denying that the controller made the situation more complicated, rather than less complicated. And we have no reason to believe that the LOT crew was somehow intentionally not preparing the cabin for takeoff, rather than something coming up at the last minute.
Just contrast this controller’s attitude to the Newark (EWR) controller in the below interaction, where an Air Premia Boeing 787 made a wrong turn, and missed the runway. The controller politely tells them what they did, and gives them clear instructions, without making a big deal of it. He even says “I’ll put the lights up, nice and bright for you.”
It’s hilarious, because the Air Premia pilot directly asks the controller if they need to be given a phone number for a pilot deviation, and the controller responds “no, that’s fine, it’s a mistake, that happens, it’s not a big deal, you didn’t do it on purpose.” If this had happened at JFK with that other controller, he would’ve blown a gasket.
Bottom line
Everyone’s favorite air traffic controller at New York Kennedy Airport was excited to have the opportunity to teach pilots a lesson, after they weren’t quite ready to go when they got to the runway. The controller was right to ask them to taxi off the runway. However, when they said they were ready to go before even entering the runway, he could’ve just given them takeoff clearance. But instead he wanted to prove a point, and make everyone’s life more complicated…
What do you make of this JFK ATC interaction?
