I am usually flying the a320 and use approach charts for my flights. However, when I monitor real flights on flighradar, they normally follow totally different approach routes, much shorter than what the approach charts indicate.
I was under the -probably wrong- impression that approach / departures charts need to be followed by all airlines? Or do pilots in real life normally fly direct after comms with ATC? ty!
When you hear, “Expect vectors to final”, ATC, IRL, actually provides vectors. Airports with high volumes of traffic will often circumvent the standard arrival procedures to queue up the aircraft arriving. Often you will arrive at the start of a STAR and be cleared direct to the IAF or some other fix along the designed route.
The published route will be flown unless ATC directs otherwise.
For adherence to a STAR or SID at an airports served by one, actual routing could depend on several factors, perhaps mostly time of day. if it’s not busy, it wouldn’t be uncommon to hear a controller provide direct-to vectors to a waypoint further down the STAR for example but mostly, the STAR is there for the purpose of providing an efficient, expeditions flow into and out of an airport where everyone knows what is expected.
Here at Phoenix and other airports, a pilot would usually contact approach with the STAR they are on. For example “American 1255 with you descending out of FL200 on the Eagul6 arrival” to which the controller would say “descend via the Eagul6” for runway 26. It would generally defeat the purpose of the STAR to have lots of deviations going on, especially in busy airspace like here in PHX.
As shown below, Here is a view in FlightRadar24 showing an arrival “push” where you can clearly see the stream of traffic on one of PHXs busiest STARs, the EAGUL6 with arrivals from the north east. I can pretty much guarantee no deviations from this STAR until ATC vectors traffic on the downwind and turns to final.
You will notice in that queue that every bird is similar. Imagine a King Air joining in. In short order he is going to be run over by the 737’s and A320’s. I have encountered more than a few times when a vector to a fix was used to slot in aircraft of divergent capabilities when things get silly.
You can have this experience in the Sim too, if you use Vatsim. It is so much more fun to fly in a dynamic environment, be part of an efficient traffic flow and follow the controllers instructions.
Certainly possible, but not for this particular STAR as its turbojets only. The scenario you described is why some STARs are designed for “turboprop” or may state “turbojet only”. It comes down to efficiency and safety. You can’t have a stream of airliners and a slow turboprop in the same mix. The flow has to keep up as there is only so much ATC-directed slowing a controller can do above and beyond what’s already published. It messes with the efficiency of things.
If you were in a KingAir arriving from the northeast, You wouldn’t file the EAGUL6, but would instead file the JESSE2 as it’s designed for turboprop and ATC assigned turbojet aircraft only.
And that is why I have been cleared direct to the IAF, “Maintain speed to GOPAD”. It isn’t always just the STAR. It also depends on the available runways. If only one is available, those slower aircraft need to slide into available slots. At YVR, I usually try to plan my arrival during slack time. Couple times I have been stuck in a hold and then haul ash when they say, “GO”. Tough to line up with a bunch of heavies when I’m in my Baron. 
You mentioned looking at real-world flights on FlightRadar in an A320 but you are now referencing how you’ve experienced it in a Baron. So are you looking for clarity on how it works in the sim or real world? Real-world and sim/VATSIM can of course be very different to reality, especially MSFS ATC. I thought you were interested in real-world operations.
So for the real-world, getting a direct to a fix would be an exception rather than a norm at an airport served by a STAR. STARS always depend on the runways they are designed to serve and they don’t cater to all traffic. Pull up any major airport served with a STAR and I will bet you will see similar arrival flows which EXACTLY follow a STAR for at least the initial descent phases. Vectors won’t happen until closer in or unless traffic, weather, spacing or other factors creep in that ATC needs to manage. That would be my answer to your original question.
You are confusing me with the OP.
OP asked why the aircraft on FlightRadar are not following the STAR.
I explained that IRL ATC can and does make changes depending on airport conditions.
I then described two different scenarios that I have encountered in real life to illustrate why he may see airplanes following routes that are inconsistent with the plates. One in a commercial King Air and another in a private Baron.
@Asesino1082 what can also change what you see is that airports have multiple STARS and also VFR routes. Each is it’s own path and different aircraft coming from various locations can be following any number of STARS or routes. This gets aggravated if there are multiple runways being used.
I hear airliners cleared to fixes all the time at Manchester (NH), traffic has been pretty light there since Covid hit.
Yup, the controllers are more than aware of the straits that many airlines are in. When conditions permit, it is not uncommon to short circuit the long drawn out STAR/TRANSITION procedure in favour of a quick and efficient “cleared to the approach”. Especially when at airports that are down to a handful of flights per day. Save fuel. Save time. No commercial operator would ever complain about that.
@willisxdc , yes you’re right I did confuse you. I also agree that vectors are a tool that ATC can use as appropriate to control the safe and expeditious flow of traffic. I also agree and stated that it could certainly happen if conditions warranted it. The image I shared of PHX was just to show the value a STAR brings to both ATC and arriving aircraft. When things are busy, you won’t see ATC vectoring traffic for the sport of it. It will be for some specific exception that needs to be delt with via a vector. It’s the reason why whenever ATC provides you with a vector, they provide a reason. “AAL443 fly heading 270, vectors for spacing” for example.
In the end, I agree. We are essentially saying the same thing. You could be vectored direct or you will be expected to strictly follow the published arrival route. All depends on the conditions. But one thing is clear. if you have filed and have been cleared on a STAR you would be expected to follow it to the letter unless told otherwise. LiveATC is full of archived conversations of berated pilots who don’t.
Short story…
Many years ago, never mind how many, I was training for my IFR rating. I had just completed my multi and decided to do some practice for both. I departed CYXX for a round trip to CYYJ with a bounce planned at CYVR on my return. I filed VFR with a request for IFR training flight and at each for a practice ILS as it was a sunny clear day and didn’t want to be “cleared visual”. I only had a handful of hours in the twin Comanche and so was still pretty busy in the cockpit.
Approach into CYYJ was uneventful and I thought the procedures went quite well. I bounced and headed for CYVR. On contact with approach they told me to hold at MEMPU, (pretty much the first fix in the STAR), due to traffic. They gave me an “Expect TALPI (the next FIX) at 21:50”. To this day I believe the controller saw “Training Flight” and grinned.
My inexperience with IFR procedures at that point rose to the fore. At the expected time, I proceeded on course to TALPI. About half way there Approach calls and gives me a vector. “Piper XXXX turn heading 110. Vectors for traffic.” Seemed like a pretty extreme course change as TALPI was at 354 but I complied.
Seemed like ages but after three or four vectors from Approach, they came back with, “Piper XXXX you are 25 miles east of the airport and now clear of my zone, continue enroute to CYXX and don’t come back without your instructor.” The controller then continued to explain to me that I had not been cleared out of the hold and should not have proceeded on course without contact. (or having lost radio contact)
Control zones are the domain of the rule makers. If you are going to fly in busy airspaces it is imperative that you familiarize yourself with the possible routes and approaches you may encounter. Never assume you will get the route you requested. If the clearance changes you best not have to start doing a bunch of reading. Just pull out the appropriate plate and review it quickly. That’s all you should need because you already studied all of them, right?
Things change and depending on the aircraft things can happen very quickly. KNOW the procedures and listen carefully to the instructions. Most controllers are pretty good folk and are happy to help when you are unsure or learning. BUT, they are human and when things are busy they can be pretty short tempered.
The next day, I filed the same route and asked my instructor to accompany me. We got the same controller. He gave me the same hold. This time when the time came and went, I called approach with a position report and he cleared me enroute. I shot a perfect ILS08L and got a well done from the controller on departure.
thank you for the helpful replies everyone. Being vectored direct is what I had assumed. for example:
Flight radar flight FR1270 from Milan to Athens on 7th June:
and Navigraph STAR overview for same runway:
It seems they were vectored direct to fix.
Great story with a learned lesson, I’m sure! So true about complying though. Even the airlines aren’t free from trial. I found the recording of an exchange between Kennedy approach and a poor JetBlue pilot who didn’t know it was going to be “his turn” going through the ringer. He did one thing wrong - wasn’t at the proper speed on a published STAR. Here is the result:
The legendary Kennedy Steve strikes again 
Neh, Kingair and most other turboprops can keep the speed up much longer than most jets. I’ve never ran into that problem when I flew Kingairs in and out if Schiphol.
On the contrary we were often asked not to keep 250 until 6 miles 
.
Yep, that’s definitely true.
I used to love it when ATC would tell the 737/320s in front to “keep the speed up, you’ve got a faster King Air behind” 
Also helped that we knew the tower & approach guys, so they often “looked after us”, so to speak, more than the airliners.
Looks like a few people have covered your opening question.
The one thing I’ll add is that ATC are always looking to streamline their traffic flow, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate. Think about how IRL the ATC will tell you to contact Ground before you have even started turning off the runway (after landing). The sims ATC in comparison is very robotic and offers no flexibility.
I’d have to give you that. Was probably a bad example. Never actually got run over in the B90 but sure felt small. In my case we were running up and down the west coast. Last trip everyday was a run down to CYVR before home to CYPR. We were always inbound from the north on the SOUND STAR and trying to slip into queue at the IAF. That used to be an NDB about 7.5 NM final. (There have been a lot of changes around there between expansion of the city and noise restrictions.)
90% of the commercial flights coming into YVR at that time were coming from the south with 747s, 707s and DC-9s lining up over the Fraser to the west (inbound to the NDB) as far as the eye could see. Controllers used to get pretty bent out of shape if we were off schedule by more than a couple minutes or anytime an unscheduled flight tried to come into the zone during rush hour.
I always marveled at how the flow of aircraft, everything from island hopping Otters to globe trotting 747s mixed with all the corporate Lears and Grummans, coming and going like flies on a carcass, seemed to shift at the whim of those guys in the tower. Those were the “wild west” days. The volume of traffic has more than quadrupled since then (actually looked it up. Served 2 million passengers in 1968, now over 24 million!!) and it seems so much smoother and controlled than it did then. The chaos has been eliminated. Or maybe it was just my inexperience, (I think I started on that route with under 700 hours), at the time that made it seem chaotic.
EDIT: I just dug through some old flips from back in the day. We had four STARS and 10 approaches, (6 ILS and 4 NDB)
Now we have 20 STARs and 17 approaches.
