David Learmount/LONDON
The UK National Air Traffic Services (NATS) is facing further delays to the opening of its new Scottish air traffic control centre (SCATCC) because contract negotiations with the Lockheed Martin-led consortium Sky Solutions have dragged on for at least a year longer than expected.
The revelation comes as the UK Government confirms a further two-year delay to the operational date for the new en route air traffic control centre (NERC) at Swanwick in Hampshire, to 2001-2.
Negotiations have finally been completed with Sky Solutions for the SCATCC contract, and transport minister Dr John Reid says that the government expects to give go-ahead "early next year".
Ground will be broken at the SCATCC Prestwick base within three months of government signature of the Sky Solutions contract, estimates NATS operations director Keith Williams. He says NATS hopes that, since over 80% of the software will be a duplication of that at the NERC, the Scottish centre will be operational within six years of breaking ground. Both centres, which are the cornerstone of the UK's twin ATCC policy, are being built by Lockheed Martin.
The SCATCC has already suffered a delay of nearly three years from the original start date of 2001-2, because of "a reassessment of the complexity of the task as a result of the experience with NERC".
The Scottish centre is financed under a private finance initiative, with NATS leasing the building and equipment from Sky Solutions - a government-approved arrangement to which NATS has always been openly hostile. The capital equipment cost is put at £230 million ($383.3 million), although the cost to NATS is expected to be at least double that for the 20-year contract, according to observers.
Williams admits that there is no choice, however, because work on the SCATCC cannot be delayed until the government's intent to privatise NATS becomes reality, enabling it to raise its own finance. Last week the government launched its consultation phase before the beginning of the privatisation legislative process.
If the future owners of NATS, which will be a "public/private partnership" (respectively 49-51% equity holdings), wish to buy the SCATCC from Sky Solutions, the contract has a "buy-back" clause, although NATS says that implementing it would be "expensive".
Commenting on the Swanwick centre, NATS chief executive Bill Semple says: "If the project continues to progress well and passes the scheduled technical milestones, it will be on course for operational service in the winter of 2000-1."
Williams says, he expects a government-ordered audit of the system by the Defence Research and Evaluation Unit to give it a clean bill of health. Software problems have repeatedly delayed the start of NERC, the original operation date was late 1996, this was later moved to 1999/2000.
The main delay now, says Williams, is that the NERC training team - controllers performing the assessment of the work stations and procedures - have been recommending changes.
These changes may be small, he says, but their effects have to be checked back through 2 million lines of software to ensure that they cause no problems.
Until this process is complete, he says, there is no point in controller training starting.
Source: Flight International
