Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport will soon have the country’s most technologically advanced Air Traffic Control (ATC) Tower. The migration procedures from the old ATC tower to the new tower has already started. The authorities are expected to complete the migration process by August 15, 2019.
New ATC Tower Features
The Airports Authorities of India (AAI) is conducting a phased roll-out of the new facility. Hence, the authorities are managing the air traffic management services from the new facility parallel to the services in the old system. This will enable them to test the automation and other systems of the new facility.
The height of the new ATC tower is around 102 metres, enabling the air traffic controllers to have better visibility of all the three runways, apron area and the taxiways. It has 72 meters tall Qutub Minar in its line of sight. The tower will provide a bird’s eye view of each corner of the operational area, enhancing the safety aspects of air traffic management.
The tower is also equipped with additional control positions, state-of-the-art equipment, and control room set-up. The facility will reduce the number of flights managed by a single air traffic controller, increasing efficiency. The new facility will also enable the controllers to divide the air space into nine sectors, instead of the current five.
New Facilities, Simultaneous Landings and More
“Extra division of air space will reduce the number of flights handled by one controller per hour, thereby enabling the existing air space to accommodate increased air traffic in future,” an AAI official said.
Additionally, the new facility will enable independent parallel approach, allowing simultaneous landings from the same direction on parallel runways.
A minimum of 1200 departures and arrivals happen at Delhi IGI airport every day. Besides, there are overflying traffic of nearly 250 planes. In total, over 40,000 flight movements are handled at the airport. The new ATC tower will improve the airport capacity and will help in providing robust safety systems.
