On Friday 2 July, Air Traffic Control the Netherlands (LVNL) reached the literal high point in the construction of the camera mast at Groningen Airport Eelde. Raising the mast is an important step towards air traffic control based on remote handling instead of from the physical tower at the airport. The construction of the camera mast and technical housing on the airport grounds started four months ago. Now that the mast is in place, the next step is construction of the technical infrastructure and extensive testing of the systems.
Malou van der Pal, General Manager Regional Unit for LVNL: "Groningen Airport Eelde is the first airport where LVNL will provide air traffic control in this innovative way. Many different parties are working towards this moment, with the erection of the camera mast as an important visible milestone."
Once it is operational, cameras on the mast will give air traffic controllers a live view of the airport area and surrounding airspace. This makes it possible to guide the air traffic at Groningen Airport Eelde from the remote tower centre being developed in the LVNL building at Schiphol Airport. The remote tower technology guarantees the continued provision of air traffic control and lower costs in the long term. At a later stage, a camera mast will also be installed at Maastricht Aachen Airport to switch to remote tower operations there as well.
Safety is the most important factor in air traffic control at all airports, and that will continue to be the case. Once the construction and technical realisation is complete, a complex process of testing and validation will commence. This will be the deciding factor in exactly when the switch to remote air traffic control will be made.
For more information, please visit lvnl.nl/remote-tower.
LVNL received a grant from the European Union for this project, via the Innovation and Networking Executive Agency (INEA).