Invercargill Airport control tower to be phased out

Friday, 1 March 2019

Nigel Finnerty, Invercargill Airport general manager.

New Zealand's first remotely operated digital air traffic control tower will be at Invercargill Airport, it has been confirmed.

Air navigation services provider Airways has awarded a contract to global technology provider Frequentis to develop a digital system for the airport.

Digital tower technology allows controllers to manage traffic from a remote location by replicating the view they would have from a conventional tower using high definition cameras and surveillance sensors.

Airways general manager of air traffic services Tim Boyle said the company was pursuing digital tower technology as a national alternative to conventional towers.

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An advanced set of tools including infrared camera equipment, object detection and tracking ability would provide vastly improved situational awareness, particularly in low light or during adverse weather conditions, he said.

Augmented reality features allow live aircraft information, such as altitude and speed, to be overlaid on screens.

Boyle said a digital tower at Invercargill Airport was the first step in Airways journey to modernise the way it provided air traffic services at airports.

Airways and Frequentis will work in partnership to deploy the digital system in Invercargill.

It is due to go live in 2020 and will be operated at first by controllers based at the airfield, before later moving to a centralised hub providing services to a number of regional locations.

Invercargill Airport general manager Nigel Finnerty said the control tower currently on site would be phased out over time, and its future was uncertain.

'Once it's not being used there will be decisions about where it's going to.'

He was excited about the technology, saying it was already being used overseas.

Invercargill was the first to get the technology in New Zealand because it had a good mix of aircraft using the airport, the terrain around the airport was ideal and the number of flights would allow the system to be tested but not overloaded, Finnerty said.

'The plan is it will be operating in a transitional trial phase next year.'

initially, aircraft controllers would continue to operate inside the tower, visually sighting the aircraft, while staff would also be in a new control room at the airport looking at screens.

As the control room staff became competent with the technology, less work would be done from the control tower and more in the control room.

Eventually, all the work would be from the control room, Finnerty said.

Jobs would not be lost due to the change, he said.

Following Invercargill Airport, Airways plans to install a digital tower at Auckland International Airport in 2020.