" wrote:

Roy Smith wrote:

For the most part, if there's an ILS at an airport that makes sense for the
prevailing wind direction, they'll be using that in preference to any other
type of approach. If the airport has an ATIS, they'll be advertising which
approach is in use there.

At my home airport (Ottawa, ON - CYOW, with two ILS approaches and
steady airline traffic) the preferred runway is 25, which has only a
LOC(BC) and NDB approach -- the assumption is that pilots will take the
visual approach on a good day.

I see I wasn't careful enough in what I wrote. The ILS is generally used
in preference to any other instrument approach (that makes sense for the
wind direction). If the weather is good enough to fly a visual, that's
generally preferable to an ILS because it saves time.

Of course, there's always exceptions. Here in New York, LaGuardia has a
number of ILS's, including an ILS-22. The most common approach, however,
is the LDA-A, CTL 22. They run it in preference to the ILS-22 for noise
abatement purposes when the weather allows.