NATS has successfully transitioned Belfast International and Belfast City airports from paper to electronic flight strips earlier this year following a ten-month programme using new hub and spoke system architecture.
While electronic strips aren’t a new concept, this UK first sees all airports in the hub and spoke system linked to a single set of data servers at NATS Swanwick Control Centre in Hampshire, which drives the screens in the operation rooms at the airports connected to it.
This removes the need for every airport air traffic control tower to have its own locally installed servers and individual data links feeding the workstations at a specific site.
The hub and spoke system increases effectiveness and efficiency, delivering significant benefits not just in infrastructure costs but also in the way the towers can share data, because they all transfer and share data from the same single database.
The new system also means that controller workload is reduced, bringing safety and capacity benefits as controllers have more time to handle more flights and monitor increased levels of traffic.
Following the success at both Belfast airports, NATS will be introducing the system at five more airports soon – Bristol, Southampton, Farnborough, Cardiff and London City – with Farnborough next to go live by December 2017.
David McEvoy, hub and spoke programme manager, NATS, said: “The transitions at Belfast International and Belfast City airports were intentionally planned to occur at the same time and while this involved an additional level of complexity, it was a great success.
“Lessons learnt from Belfast will now be used to contribute to the future implementation of the system at the remaining spoke airports.”