Newly updated Air traffic control unit at Chennai Airport
Posted on: 10/Nov/2018 3:01:14 PM
Updated air traffic control unit is being set up for the flight departures and arrivals at Chennai Airport. With this newly updated control unit the departure delays will come down rapidly said the sources of Chennai Airport.
Airport Authority of India launched this new control unit with separate VHF channel to clear off the delays in take-off plans of the flights. The parking of the planes and other movement strategies delayed the departure plans of various flights throughout the day. Now the new control unit is designed in a way to sort out all the issues beforehand and schedule the departure plan on time without any big variations.
Surface movements and take-off are mostly handled by different control unit owing to the common international practice in many airports based in ICAO regulations. But the move from Airport Authority of India to start a separate unit is to avoid any kind of congestion mainly caused as a result of pushback and take-off of planes in a given time.
The sources of AAI said they had controllers that were handling the surface movement of planes taxiing and parking. This gave the clearance in take-off plans of planes but with several congestion in communication exchange through radio channels. Several incidents had occurred before related with clearance to take off flights and sudden instruction of standby mode. Now with a separate channel the instructions will have a clear pass on through the dedicated VHF mode avoiding the last minute confusion based on departure plans said the sources of Chennai Airport.
The new control unit issues the ATC clearance oriented with departure instructions on VHF based communication systems. The unit also issues clearances to equipped aircraft through date link procedure. The new unit not only reduces the traffic control congestion resulting in departure delays but also the possibility of take-off instructions. Reducing the workload of surface movement controllers and surveillance time for the staff are the main advantages of this new control unit.
Airport Authority of India is also planning to build an additional air traffic control tower at Chennai Airport to introduce a virtual traffic control option. This will help managing landings and take-off plans for small cities.
