DAVID LEARMOUNT / SWANWICK
Prestwick centre will be first "user-driven system" and will take charge of part of London Flight Information Region
The new Scottish air traffic control (ATC) centre at Prestwick will extend its airspace coverage southward by 150km (80nm) into the present London Flight Information Region (FIR), says UK National Air Traffic Services chief operating officer Colin Chisholm.
Meanwhile, its new-era air traffic management (ATM) systems will be provided by a Spanish consortium and the US aerospace company Raytheon, says chief executive Richard Everitt.
Planned to open during the 2008-09 low season, the New Prestwick Centre "will be the start point for a new [ATM] system", says Everitt. It is no longer called the New Scottish Centre because its control area will extend southwards by 150-200km into England - "approximately as far as Manchester", says Chisholm - and the Manchester terminal area control centre will move to Prestwick.
Prestwick will be "the first user-driven system" into operation since NATS became a public/private partnership two years ago, says Everitt.
Whereas the London Area Control Centre (LACC) at Swanwick - which went operational a year ago this week - was a major upgrade of the existing National Airspace System (NAS) software rehosted on modern hardware, Prestwick's system will comprise commercial off-the-shelf packages.
Impressed with Spain's new ATM systems, NATS is now working with a consortium led by Spanish ATM agency AENA and Madrid-based information technology company Indra, together with partner Raytheon. Prestwick will be one of the first European centres designed from the outset in co-operation with Eurocontrol.
Meanwhile, Chisholm believes that there were just five risk-bearing airprox events (near misses) in UK airspace last year - a 10-year low - although data has not yet been fully analysed. Only one of these events might have been LACC-related, he adds.
But from May to mid-August, the average UK air traffic control delay rose from 1.5min per movement to 2.6min, while the rest of Europe improved. Chisholm admits this was caused by a controller shortage.
Swanwick uses a tactical and a planning controller at each workstation, whereas at its predecessor centre, West Drayton, there was one tactical controller per workstation and a supervisor for several sectors.
Recruitment and training should solve the shortage within three years, Chisholm estimates.
Source: Flight International
