Maastricht launches "intelligent" control system.

Environmentally friendly and safe to be flying over northwestern Germany and the Benelux countries will be - thanks to a new control system. This allows many travel routes in Europe will be shortened.

 

Maastricht / Frankfurt am Main, Germany - It is the first step towards a single European airspace, since experts are certain: Eurocontrol in Maastricht, a district headquarters of the European air traffic control, began on Monday a new control system in operation.

With the "smart" system will be the ever-denser traffic efficiently settled, said the Dutch Transport Minister Camiel Eurlings. The headquarters in Maastricht, controlled airspace is one of the busiest worldwide.

The new 46 million-euro system for processing flight data is promising: The 250 air traffic controllers can use so-called real-time information faster and more direct routes across the rigid air corridors plan. The flight path will be continuously updated. Scheduled flight paths take into account dynamic factors such as weather conditions and traffic. Through simulated and displayed on the screen can pilotage routes critical situations already 20 minutes earlier and refrain warn the pilots.

The exchange between controllers and pilots will be more automated, told the Center. Thus, the risk of misunderstandings in the handling further. Also, the workload of the pilots will be monitored. If in the sector, a pilot is very much traffic, other colleagues to step in and help.

The new flight data processing system is the key to aviation in the future to lead, says Eurocontrol's Director General David McMillan. By 2030, with a doubling of air traffic in Europe is expected.

Fewer flights over Germany

First, though the economic crisis leads to a reduction in flight revenue, at least in German airspace, as the German Air Traffic Control (DFS) announced. With 3.15 million civilian and military flights, the DFS in the past year is still 1.1 percent more flights than in 2007 controls. Since October 2008, the air traffic in Germany, but clearly. The documents on Monday in Frankfurt am Main report presented mobility of DFS.

In December 2008 there were 7.5 percent less, in February of this year already, minus 12.9 percent. Overall, the number of aircraft movements since the beginning of 2009 by 10 percent, said the chairman of the DFS Management, Dieter Kaden.

For the current year had a total of five percent fewer flights compared to the previous year, Kaden quoted a forecast of Eurocontrol. Accordingly, until 2011 could the level of 2008 again reached. Generally, the prospects were anything but positive, Kaden underlined and referred to figures of the grim trade association IATA.