Braunschweig: New control center for the airport

New control center

Braunschweig Airport will monitor Emden in the future

There are 300 kilometers between the airports in Braunschweig and Emden in East Frisia. In the future, operations will be monitored from one room.

From next year, a new control center at Braunschweig-Wolfsburg Airport will take over air traffic control for Emden and Braunschweig-Wolfsburg airports. The so-called Remote Tower Center (RTC) makes it possible to carry out flight monitoring remotely and offers capacity for up to six locations. This means that in the future the many airports will sit right next to each other in one room, even though the airports are around 300 kilometers apart.

At the opening of the center, Lower Saxony’s Transport Minister Olaf Lies emphasized that smaller airports were becoming increasingly important. He is convinced that regional air traffic is increasing worldwide.

Camera systems were installed at the tower in Emden to give the controllers a 360-degree view. “Just like the controllers now have in the tower,” said the managing director of the Emder Flugplatzgesellschaft, Olaf Schmidt. There are also controllable individual cameras that can be used to take a closer look at individual objects. Instead of having our own tower, the approximately 11,000 flight movements annually are monitored remotely using cameras. According to the airport company, the majority, around 80 percent, is accounted for by helicopter traffic to offshore wind turbines in the North Sea.

For Transport Minister Lies it is clear that the offshore expansion will bring with it a lot of additional traffic. In addition, according to the belief of those in use, such systems also help against a shortage of skilled workers. “By bundling the airfield controllers, the deployment of personnel will become more flexible,” said airport boss Schmidt. Especially in the event of absences due to illness, it is difficult for smaller airports to quickly organize replacements.

The investment in the RTC was funded by the former red-black state government with around five million euros; a total of ten million euros were invested. After a successful test operation, the four pilots previously deployed in Emden will move to Braunschweig. Other airports are also to be integrated into the RTC.