Well it’s hard to figure out exactly what it could be, based on this info.
But I’ll just tell you what I did today and yesterday. This morning I had a short haul too from Rotterdam The Hague Airport into Basel Mulhouse. Flight time 01:00 hours. Cruise level FL350.
I use PRO-ATCsr which offers me in flight information on what arrivals to expect. So about some 80 miles before the ‘rough estimate Top Of Descent’ I check that information and feed the approach data well in time before hitting the TOD.
Now because this is a big aircraft, I requested the initial descent from air traffic control some 20 miles before actually hitting the TOD. It then assigned me an initial descent altitude of FL250, I dialed that in, pressed profile and then nothing happened. I remembered from a video how the A310 would only descent AT the TOD, unlike a modern Boeing/Airbus that you would use assign an initial descent and watch it going at -1000 feet per minute untill catching up with the vertical profile.
So I then instead hit Vertical Speed instead. Dialed in -10 at first (-1000 feet) and after I watched the engines spool down and the nose gently seeking for a descent pitch, I increased descent to -15 shortly there after. Again, as we’re working with mass here, it’s perfectly fine not to rush her.
I then got re-cleared to FL160, and at some point the vertical profile was catching up with me. You can follow the exact deviation from the vertical profile on the PROG (Progress) page, in the top right corner it will either read plus or minus the deviated height.
As the path catched up with us, I switch from VS descent to profile descent and watched how she gently started following that mode instead, taking her down and slowing her down.
ATC kept re-clearing us to lower altitudes and at about 15,000 feet I think, we lost the vertical profile as it went underneath us. Here is when heavy’s get trouble with losing speed and altitude at the same time. So I just applied the speedbrakes/spoilers and watched her catch up again.
ATC then started vectoring us into Basel which is pretty familiar on French approaches and as we left the lateral profile, I started working with level change instead. Mostly with spoilers applied to help her descent and the lower speeds.
ProATCsr also assigns maximum speeds so at some point we were assigned 220 knots and as we made our way into the localiser I started slowing down to ‘clean minimums’ at 209 knots (which is the least possible speed the aircraft can fly without deploying flaps (I don’t know how familiar you are with jets so I just explain a lot, helps newbies reading this too anyway). THen as we turned into the localsier I deployed slats, slowed down to 185 knots. Then started with the flaps as we worked our way down. And I too was full flaps established at 10 miles DME. She intercepted the glideslope perfectly as we lowered the gear to give some extra drag and I disconnected the AP at about 1500 feet AGL I think (low level clouds were obscuring the runway before that) and then we touched down nice and dandy.
So. That worked for me. Hope it may work for you and others too.
With big planes: be in front of them. Always know/feel that you’re working with a lot of mass both in the vertical profile but also during turns on the lateral profile. It’s just big so she needs her time. Be in front of that and they’re usually very fun to work with.