RocketRoute were invited by Air Traffic Control team member Walid Ammar to tour their facilities, the day before the start of EBACE14.
We want to express our thanks to the Swiss Air Traffic Control Centre for the tour and enjoyable experience!
A real bonus of the visit was an approach and fly past of the new Airbus A350 enroute to the Berlin airshow. A great looking aircraft and very quiet too!
The tour started with a look at how the Swiss airspace is separated by flight level. Each aircraft could be selected and key information read. Walid provided an overview of the key functions and controls for a standard terminal.
The Swiss airspace is separated by Flight Level.
The Air Traffic Control Center is logically layed out by section. Swiss Airspace is managed by Flight Level separation, with Flow Control, Approach and Departure as separate teams. At the centre is the Shift Supervisor over seeing all operations.
The Flow Management team looks at flights for the next day and monitors demand and loading in real-time. Issues are reported to the team leaders.
Walid works in the Geneva Approach team. During the tour everything felt controlled and calm.
Swiss are moving to embed the Strip data into the system software. For the moment they are still working with strips. Every 30 seconds of so a new print out appeared via tube.
Here is an example showing how the control managed the aircraft approach into LSGG.
RocketRoute team member Steven Morgan was in his element in the tower at Geneva! Looking suitably happy to be allowed inside and seeing the controller end of where RocketRoute flight plans end up!
Geneva Tower had a viewing area outside the tower (several stories up). This was perfect to see the ramp area and movements. By our counting EasyJet had the lion's share of movements during the period we were at the tower.
Geneva airport has a smart design with a hub and spoke gates, accessed via underground walkways.
More of the team Uwe and Justin enjoying a commanding view of LSGG!
Thanks once again to the Swiss Air Traffic Control team for letting RocketRoute inside! We have a much better appreciation of the airspace and operations.
View from Geneva center.