Heathrow’s New Tower

Everybody seems surprised by the smooth transition to the new “Visual Control Room” (VCR) at Heathrow (EGLL). Everybody but me, that is… I’ve been paying attention throughout the process, and even had a chance to stop by and take a look shortly after the tower cab made its trip across the airport and was hoisted aloft. In my estimation, the whole process went much more smoothly than one could expect, and that’s a credit to everyone involved.

A short Heathrow tower getting taller, February 2005. 
Copyright 2005 Aviation Policy Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved

 I’ve been chuckling about one thing though… The FAA’s ATCSCC Advisories Database continues to carry one Heathrow entry every day, in addition to the normal Eurocontrol updates. Here’s the entry from 23 April:

ATCSCC ADVZY 032 DCC 04/23/07
ATCSCC/EUROCONTROL (CFMU) OUTLOOK_FYI FOR 231600 THRU 241559
EUROPEAN TERMINAL CONSTRAINTS:
EGLL-NEW ATCT
ENGM/EFHF-LOW VIS
EN ROUTE CONSTRAINTS: NONE 

Note the first European Terminal Constraint. Now THAT hardly seems fair to our friends, the boys and girls in NATS who make Heathrow work so smoothly! To my knowledge, the tower came alive at 0200 on 21 April 2007 with the arrival of BA026, a B747 from Hong Kong, and things have gone without anything requiring a “terminal constraint” since. We offer our congratulations to the controllers specifically (you know who you are), NATS generally, BAA, Rogers, Arup, Watson Steel, AK Heavy Engineering, and everyone else who had a hand in making this work. We’re proud of you.

 In fact, I’ve only got one bone to pick: I keep reading things like the following excerpt from one of NATS’ press releases for the launch of the new tower:

Heathrow is the most intensively used airport in the world, with up to 90 arrivals and departures an hour during the operating day, 365 days a year.

The press release then goes on to say that:

NATS Heathrow safely handled 477,000 flights in 2006. 

Sorry? Heathrow, is “the most intensively used airport in the world” with 477,000 movements in 2006? And lest you think calling Heathrow “the most intensively used airport in the world” means something other than “busiest,” I refer you to an earlier NATS press release concerning the shiny new VCR simulator for the new tower:

One of Europe’s most realistic air traffic control (ATC) simulators has gone live, preparing controllers at Heathrow for life in their new tower, 87 metres above the runways of the world’s busiest international airport.

Now, I’m a champion of the controllers at Heathrow (and throughout the UK, as a matter of fact). These folks work a lot of complex traffic and do it very, very well. I’m very pleased about the new VCR at Heathrow and I believe that, the sooner that the LTCC can get out of those antiquated facilities in West Drayton and down to Swanwick, the better. However, calling Heathrow the world’s busiest international airport when, in fact, it would rank number 13 in the United States, a couple thousand ops ahead of Minneapolis (KMSP) and a couple thousand behind Detroit (KDTW), is puzzling.   By my calculation (grabbing the FAA’s numbers and dumping them into Excel), 477,000 ops is less than half the number of movements at both Atlanta and O’Hare. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong…

 In any case, congratulations to our British brethren. Nice new digs. May they never see an operational error.

-Dave