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    The Aviation Advocacy Blog

    A cornucopia of news, opinion, views, facts and quirky bits that need to be talked about. Join our community and join in the conversation on all matters aviation. The blog includes our weekly round-up of the bits of European aviation you may otherwise have missed – That Was The Week That Was

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Towers – Watch this space, or some other remote one…

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta space probe is now in close orbit with comet 67P, perhaps better known as the Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet.  Other probes have done fly-pasts.  Rosetta has taken that one step closer – it is now moving at the same speed as the comet itself and all going well, it will land on the comet.  That is a remarkable piece of space engineering, more than likely involving rocket scientists, but it raises one very simple question:  If we can land a probe on a comet in deep space, what about aircraft on runways? The answer, of course, is that we can, and we are starting to do so.  By definition, en-route ATM is remote from the area being controlled so it was only natural that we can do it for remote airports too. Perhaps the real question is why do we continue to think that we need towers at all? ANSPs, airport owners and airline operators focus on costs and efficiency at all times, so finding safe, efficient and lower cost options is always of interest.    High definition images, state of the art video density, object tracking and alerting, night vision and operative control under low visibility conditions are set to reinvent ATM at airports. That might be just as well, because the airports have shown that they are more than happy to reinvent ATM at airports too.  And, make it more competitive.  Aviation Advocacy supports increased competition in air transport, so this is a Good Thing. The UK CAA published an opinion last year that said that the Commission’s SES-driven requirement to put towers above a certain size out to tender was back-to-front.  The risk involved in changing the operation of the towers at larger airports was too great, it decided.  Only the smaller towers were suitable.  The Aviation Intelligence Reporter covered this at the time. Gatwick did not get the memo.  It has announced that from October next year, DFS will operate the Gatwick Airport tower.  Gatwick is legendary in ATM circles: a single runway that handles a world record 55 movements an hour.  DFS is also legendary in ATM circles: the German ANSP that tried to purchase a share in NATS, only to be defeated by the superannuation fund of the UK’s academics. There was considerable angst at the time of the NATS sale about what is called ‘the Daily Mail effect’, or what the notoriously rabid UK tabloid newspapers would say about a German entity controlling any part of the UK sky.  A more rational concern was the risk of an outcome that saw the most liberal, privatised ANSP in Europe sold into the hands of one of the least liberal.  The German Constitution, apparently, prohibits the privatisation of DFS.  Apparently it does not prohibit DFS acquiring privatised ANSPs. The announcement of the transfer was pushed out of the papers, even the tabloids, by more newsworthy events.  The day the announcement was made coincided with the shooting down of MH17.  What hope did faux outrage and a chance for headline writers to show off their particular skills have over Russian perfidy?   The fact that it was a cost saving move from Gatwick – and the savings are reported to be considerable – with the promise of lower charges to airlines would have been beside the point on any other day. Picking up on the CAA point, the airlines that serve Gatwick are not exactly being overwhelming in their support.  Publically, they are saying nothing.  Privately, they are looking for risk mitigation and contingency plans.  Or, to put that in terms that the Daily Mail would not understand, they are more worried about preserving their operations’ reliability and resilience than refighting the Battle of Britain.

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