preferential vs priority

hello,
here is the sentence: due to environmental pressure, runway 32L is the preferential departure/ arrivals runway if possible.

can I say 32L is the priority runway or runway in priority for departure…

thank you for your answers :smiley:

To answer your question, first I need to understand what you meant by “priority”. The above sentence means to say that because of environmental pressure (reads: noise abatement), ATC should assign 32L first (if available) before other runways.

hi diverhank,
if I say the English is my priority in Chinese company that means English such language can project myself out of others or my good conditions, right?
in this sentence the 32L is the better choice thus it should be consider firstly. right?
anyway, I got your explaination on sentence but maybe make some confusion on ‘priority’ and ‘preferential’. By the way you mean the environmental pressure means they have to make noise abated. and other question is that you use ‘reads:’ here, does it mean ‘understand’ or ‘notice’?

hehe, I know ask you a lot, thank you for your reply

Hi Liquichao,
I suppose you can use “priority runway” here. However, without proper context, the term is not totally clear. I’d prefer “Give runway 32L priority when assigning runways for departures and arrivals”. It’s a lot clearer than " runway 32L is the priority departure/arrivals runway if possible" when you want people to do something.

The biggest problem with technical writing is that writers tend to make the sentences sound important and “technical” without concern for clarity. Environmental pressure is a big word for airplane noise concerns. Preferential is a big word for preferred.

When I wrote (reads: xxxx)…it’s my lazy way to indicate that you should interpret the term as xxx. Don’t use it in any formal writing :slight_smile:

I got it, hehe, thank you so much