Andrew Doyle/LONDON
THE UK CIVIL AVIATION Authority is expected to decide by the end of January whether to delay the planned opening date of its £350 million ($535 million) Swanwick air-traffic-control (ATC) centre which is being built near Southampton by US company Loral.
Major software problems and possible controller shortages are threatening to delay the opening of the new area control centre for England and Wales, due to begin operations in December.
The centre, which the CAA claims will be the most advanced in the world, is vital in UK plans to increase over-flight capacity by 40%
The CAA has admitted that "...some technical difficulties are being experienced with the integration of software programs, and we are working closely with Loral to solve them. With a complex project of this kind, some delay is inevitable. The London Area & Terminal Control Centre [LATCC] will be able to handle the increase in air-traffic movements until the new Swanwick centre becomes available."
The software-integration difficulties are understood to concern the networking of individual controller stations at Swanwick, and the problem of "incompatible" computer systems within the ATC framework of Eurocontrol.
Loral, which is leading the project on behalf of the CAA, declines to comment on the software problems.
Meanwhile, the CAA is striving to train sufficient numbers of controllers for Swanwick. By the end of 1995, some 200 controllers had completed initial simulator training for the new centre, but only 28 had been validated. The CAA says that a further 35 will be validated "within the next 12 months", and a further "200-plus" during the first half of 1997. For Swanwick to become fully operational by mid-1997, 370 validated controllers will be required.
The CAA maintains that it is "...extremely confident we will have sufficient trained ATC staff to open Swanwick on time".
Sources within the CAA's National Air Traffic Services, however, say that only a limited number of controllers from the LATCC, in West Drayton, can be released for training because of a high failure-rate of new controllers being brought on line.
Steve Garner, deputy general manager at the LATCC, says that "around 50%" of new controllers coming into the LATCC are failing to become validated.
"Of the 50% that don't make it, 85% are successful at other ATC centres," he adds.
Source: Flight International
