[audeyisaacs]

"line up and wait" is no less declarative than "position and hold", and has the advantage of not being confused with "hold short". Who is confusing "line up and wait" with "cleared for takeoff", and are they really any less likely to have been confused with "position and hold"?

[wkat4242]

It shouldn't be confused because the word 'takeoff' is only ever given together with a clearance due to terrible mistakes in the past.

Even a pilot wouldn't say the word takeoff, it would be 'ready for departure'.

[tdooner]

Agreed. The change was made to conform to ICAO standards[1], which the article alludes to, but doesn't examine the implications of remaining unstandardized. Surely having different phraseology in the US is a separate risk and cognitive burden!

To me the main issue is not "wait" vs "hold"... it's that either way, pilots may misremember having been issues the takeoff clearance. The best defense against this, IMHO, is ground radar to detect the movement as early as possible.

[1]: https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/resources/luaw

[buildsjets]

Regardless of nomenclature, it is the PROCESS of entering the runway environment but not immediately starting takeoff that is confusing and should be eliminated.

No aircraft should ever be sitting still on a runway blind to landing traffic behind them. The time saved by eliminating the short taxi from the hold short line to the runway is not worth the additional risk incurred, either the risk of taxiing to position and failing to hold, or taxiing to position and holding while you get rearended by a landing aircraft.

[ralph84]

> The time saved … is not worth the additional risk

The time saved is most definitely required for certain airports to maintain their current traffic levels. So we would need a study to understand if the economic impact of the reduced traffic from eliminating line up and wait is worth the expected reduction in accidents.