Falcon 20FJF/20C/20D/20E/20F
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 100; Flight Crew Total 13500; Flight Crew Type 6000
ATC Issue All Types
General None Reported / Taken
Procedure; Airspace Structure
On a flight to HSA our aircraft was assigned a RADAR vector on descent when transitioning airspace boundaries to avoid a conflict with opposite direction traffic. After landing I was asked to call the Houston Center about a possible deviation of instruction. This descent profile into HSA on this route has given us plenty of problems in the past resulting not being able to get down in an orderly fashion. The airspace we are over flying into HSA is controlled by New Orleans Approach and the Houston Center attempts to make a single hand off to Gulfport Approach (the adjoining control agency) who works the aircraft down from Center controlled airspace to the HSA control zone east of New Orleans airspace. After numerous phone discussions with both Houston Center and also New Orleans Approach regarding this issue in the past it was suggested that the crew requested from the Houston Low Altitude Controller a hand off to New Orleans Approach whose airspace would be utilized to make a normal descent profile into HSA. This was attempted on previous flights and has worked when the Center did transfer control to New Orleans Approach. This seems to be the only way that a normal descent profile can be accomplished. The problem is that the time/distance flown into New Orleans airspace is of such short duration that New Orleans doesn't want the hand off since it must begin transfer of control to Gulfport almost immediately and the Houston Center would rather make only the one hand off to Gulfport Approach. This flight experienced the usual problem of being too high; to close to destination airport and a refusal of the Center to hand off to New Orleans even when requested to do so on this descent by me. I was informed that New Orleans was to busy to take the hand off. Since we are based nearby and know the approach frequencies by memory; I called New Orleans on the second radio while the Co-Captain maintained contact with Houston and abided by their instruction of a heading vector of 090 degrees and maintain 16;000 FT. I asked New Orleans if they were indeed to busy to take the hand off and was informed that they were not. I was then given instructions to turn directly to HSA by the New Orleans Approach Controller as he assumed that we were handed off to him by my radio call. I immediately informed him that we were still being controlled by Houston Center and on a RADAR vector and could not follow his clearance as a hand off had not been given to us. He said he would call Houston and tell them that he could take the hand off and would control us. At that time Houston handed us off to Gulfport Approach who cleared us for lower and direct to the airport. After the flight I had a long phone discussion with the New Orleans Approach Control shift supervisor who suggested that we ask for lower earlier in the flight and get down early to the 16;000 FT Houston Center airspace limit so they (Houston) would 'have' to hand us off to New Orleans instead of flying a good distance at that altitude before handing us off to Gulfport. He also confided that they would rather not take the hand off and would rather Houston switch directly to Gulfport as this would only add to their workload. He said that we were a fish trying to swim upstream and that it will be a problem into the future and sometimes it will work and depending upon traffic sometimes it won't. The problem is the late hand off directly to Gulfport results in an uncomfortable steep descent with airbrakes extended to avoid having to circle to make a descent into HSA. Forget about being stabilized when making the RNAV GPS 36 into the airport as was the approach in use at this time. This day we put a second flight plan on file that would have taken us north of the New Orleans Approach airspace over BTR VOR then direct but the Center denied the route and issued us the usual direct HRV direct HSA clearance after the departure SID limit of SBI. Even en route we requested direct BTR direct due to convective weather and the controlled checked and said that we can get in over HRV and denied the request 30 minutes prior to reaching HRV. This problem is being ignored by the controlling agencies even after numerous requests by me from them to do something to correct the problem. Even filing a different route to avoid this trap is being denied. I learned from the New Orleans supervisor that other air carrier flights into GPT from IAH are experiencing similar problems with their descent profiles.
[Narative #2 had no additional information.]
Corporate aircraft inbound to HSA voiced concern regarding the ATC handling of descent procedures apparently hampered by airspace constraints.