Chennai Airport segregates air traffic controllers

The decision will save 1,300 tonnes of air fuel every year and will increase aircarfts handling

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Chennai Airport has segregated air traffic controllers handling arrival and departure. This would help the airline to save 1,300 tonnes of air fuel and also would reduce carbon emission, said officials.

Sylvester Israel, General Manager Air Traffic Management, Chennai said that around 1,300 tonnes of air fuel would be saved every year, besides reducing carbon emissions to the tune of 4,000 tonnes every year with segregation of air traffic controllers handling arrival and departure of aircraft.

Earlier there was a single air traffic controller who would be handling both departures and arrivals.

The airport was handling 29 aircraft per hour but with the segregation now a total of 32 aircraft (both arrival and departure) can be handled per hour and it will further increase it to 36 aircraft per hour.

Similarly, implementation of proposed bifurcation of high-density Chennai Upper Sector serving the airspace around Bangalore controlling close to 650 aircraft operating from/ to Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and other major cities, will pave way for enhanced safety & efficiency of flight operations in the Chennai upper airspace said the authorities.

Airport Authority of India (AAI), Chennai, has undertaken the project of Sectorising the Oceanic Airspace on trial basis.

The airspace is split into two sectors after assessing the workload of the controllers, traffic density in each sector , number of traffic conflict points requiring controllers' intervention and the communication or surveillance facilities available in each sector.

The project which will be implemented after three phases of trial operations after Regulatory Safety Assessments, will go a long way not only in alleviating the workload of controllers but also in improving operational efficiency of Air Navigation Service in the Oceanic Airspace and enabling aircraft to obtain their optimum flight profile with enhanced safety.