Flight 123...ready for departure? Line up runway 28 Pilot: Roger, Flight 123 ready for departure, cleared to line up runway 28 for departure Tower controller: Flight 123 cleared for take-off Pilot: Roger, Flight 123 cleared for take-off, taking off now.... ....and in another 30 seconds, the flight gets airborne, and the controls shifts from air traffic control (ATC) to the approach control unit (ACU).
For all the casually "cool" nature of the take-off and landing procedures, managing air traffic is a stressful and responsible job for the controllers. "One moment of carelessness may claim hundreds of lives," says a controller without taking his eyes off the screen showing all the flights under the Delhi ATC at Indira Gandhi International Airport. "No one would want to be held responsible for that. Between entering the ATC tower and leaving it, we do nothing but control the traffic."
In front of him is the screen that morphs feeds from radars into plane-like icons, or pointers.
Every flight approaching the airport from different directions is shown on the screen, the distance of the flights to their designated runways marked. Beside every pointer is an information box with all the details about the flight and the aircraft.
According to air traffic management officials, better technology - in the ATC tower, on the ground infrastructure and in the automated systems - helps deal with the drastic increase in the traffic in recent times. But the pressure on the human in the tower is also higher now. ATC work demands attention every minute. Controllers say that each and every emergency call has to be dealt with equal urgency. "What is routine can suddenly change into something special," says one of the controllers. "It could be low holding fuel, low air pressure in a tyre or a medical emergency, but we are the first to know about a special situation on-board a flight and none of them can be dealt with casually." As soon as the pilot contacts ATC, the tower ropes in the fire services, and brings AOCC (Airport Operations Control Centre) and DIAL (Delhi International Airport Limited) into the loop. Work can sometimes be affected by a sudden change in weather, hampering the controllers' ability to manage the traffic with the same robustness as in better conditions. Apart from sandstorms, high wind velocity and thunder storms, what also upsets the routine are the restrictions caused by VVIP movement or runway maintenance. "The burden becomes heavier twofold, threefold, if any of the runways are shut during the peak hours even for five minutes," says a controller. "The pile up that this creates takes hours to be cleared. At such times, all of us focus together on clearing the backlog because flight can't be held up for too long."
To Read the News in Full 05/04/16 Anvit Srivastava/The Times Of India
For all the casually "cool" nature of the take-off and landing procedures, managing air traffic is a stressful and responsible job for the controllers. "One moment of carelessness may claim hundreds of lives," says a controller without taking his eyes off the screen showing all the flights under the Delhi ATC at Indira Gandhi International Airport. "No one would want to be held responsible for that. Between entering the ATC tower and leaving it, we do nothing but control the traffic."
In front of him is the screen that morphs feeds from radars into plane-like icons, or pointers.
Every flight approaching the airport from different directions is shown on the screen, the distance of the flights to their designated runways marked. Beside every pointer is an information box with all the details about the flight and the aircraft.
According to air traffic management officials, better technology - in the ATC tower, on the ground infrastructure and in the automated systems - helps deal with the drastic increase in the traffic in recent times. But the pressure on the human in the tower is also higher now. ATC work demands attention every minute. Controllers say that each and every emergency call has to be dealt with equal urgency. "What is routine can suddenly change into something special," says one of the controllers. "It could be low holding fuel, low air pressure in a tyre or a medical emergency, but we are the first to know about a special situation on-board a flight and none of them can be dealt with casually." As soon as the pilot contacts ATC, the tower ropes in the fire services, and brings AOCC (Airport Operations Control Centre) and DIAL (Delhi International Airport Limited) into the loop. Work can sometimes be affected by a sudden change in weather, hampering the controllers' ability to manage the traffic with the same robustness as in better conditions. Apart from sandstorms, high wind velocity and thunder storms, what also upsets the routine are the restrictions caused by VVIP movement or runway maintenance. "The burden becomes heavier twofold, threefold, if any of the runways are shut during the peak hours even for five minutes," says a controller. "The pile up that this creates takes hours to be cleared. At such times, all of us focus together on clearing the backlog because flight can't be held up for too long."
To Read the News in Full 05/04/16 Anvit Srivastava/The Times Of India
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