Shake-up of Clacton sector, responsible for some of worst delays, will save airlines "millions"
The UK National Air Traffic Services (NATS) is implementing major changes this week to an airspace area that in 2003 was responsible for some of the worst delays in Europe.
The restructuring is being implemented to the Clacton sector over East Anglia on 18 March, which handles 1,200 movements a day, and NATS says it will increase the amount of controlled airspace in the area by 20% and raise capacity by 30%, leading to savings of "millions of pounds" for airlines - although it declines to be specific as to how much.
NATS admits that the growth in flights over the Clacton area has in recent years accounted for up to 20% of overall UK delays, but claims this has fallen to 3.9% following airspace changes introduced in March 2003. It attributes the delays mainly to a lack of capacity for managing overflights to and from Scandinavia and the north Atlantic and in the London terminal manoeuvring area (TMA).
The resectorisation adds two new terminal control areas bordering the Belgian and Dutch flight information regions (FIR). Traffic arriving and leaving London Stansted and London Luton is now handled by the low-level westbound and eastbound sectors controlled by the Swanwick air traffic control centre. The change will create two new low-level sectors enabling traffic to flow between the London TMA and European continent without entering Swanwick-controlled airspace, which, NATS says, will "greatly improve strategic contingency measures". A new outer hold and waypoint, "LAPRA", north of Ipswich, has also been established to take some of the load from the hold at "ABBOT".
Ian Linton, general manager of the London terminal control centre at West Drayton, says the changes are designed to "increase capacity and further reduce delays in the future". He says the area includes some of the most complex airspace in Europe, and that changes introduced so far have provided "phenomenal improvements".
He adds, however, that the effectiveness of the Clacton improvements remain "subject to the month by month volatility of airlines and the routes and airports they use. The market can change in a few months, but it takes three years to bring in major changes like this to an airspace sector."
Environmentally, NATS says it expects the changes will have a "positive impact" by reducing the current flight distances by an average of one mile which, applied to the current level of 35 flights an hour, will reduce fuel consumption and flyover noise levels.
JULIAN MOXON / LONDON
Source: Flight International
