New air traffic control centre opened
25.01.10
Nearly half of UK flights will be controlled from Scotland from today when Europe's biggest air traffic control centre enters full operational service, the Scotsman reports. The new £180m complex at Prestwick Airport replaces a 30-year-old adjacent building and also takes over from a control centre in Manchester that has now closed.
The scheme, which has been in the pipeline for a decade, will provide a significant economic boost to the west of Scotland economy. Air traffic control company NATS, which owns and runs the centre, said the project had been completed on time and under budget.
The centre's 900 staff include 130 air traffic controllers who transferred from Manchester, each of whom earns up to £91,000 a year. Manchester based controllers handed over control of their airspace at 03:00 on Saturday, ending 35 years of operations there, then quickly moved north in time to be at their new base today.
The three separate parts of the new Prestwick complex collectively control more air space than any other European control centre. The Scottish area control centre will control nearly a million flights a year – 42 percent of the 2.2 million using UK airspace under air traffic control, and up from one third previously.
Prestwick's oceanic area control centre controls nearly 400,000 flights over the eastern half of the north Atlantic, from the Azores to near Iceland. The new building also houses an RAF air traffic control centre, responsible for military aircraft flying over Scotland and northern England, and all aircraft emergencies.
The move completes the halving of UK air traffic control centres, following the closure of the West Drayton centre near Heathrow 3 years ago. The other centre is at Swanwick, near Southampton. The new Prestwick centre will be officially opened by the Princess Royal on February 5.
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