Air traffic controllers have one of the most stressful jobs in the world. They are responsible for the lives of thousands of passengers who fly in and out of the world's airports every day. Over the last 15 years, the number of planes in the sky has doubled, leading to congestion at many airports and putting air traffic controllers under increasing pressure. The controllers battle to maintain 'separation standards' that set the distance between planes as they land and take off. Sheer volume pushes the air traffic controllers' skills to the limit. Jim Courtney, an air traffic controller at LaGuardia Airport in New York, says: 'There are half a dozen moments of sheer terror in each year when you wish you did something else for a living.'
New York - the world's busiest airspace The busiest airspace in the world is above New York.
Around 7500 planes arrive and depart each day at New York's three airports, John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark. The three airports form a triangle around New York and are just 15 miles from each other. This requires careful coordination of traffic patterns, approach and takeoff routes, using predetermined invisible corridors in the sky to keep the planes away from each other. If the wind changes, all three airports work together to change the flight paths.
Sophisticated technology fitted to most of the bigger planes creates a safety zone around the aircraft so that when two aircraft get near to each other their computers negotiate which is going to take action to avoid the other and then alerts the pilot who changes course. Smaller aircraft, without radar, rely upon vision and the notion of 'little plane, big sky'.

Questions
1. What does ‘planning and control’ mean to air traffic controllers?
2. What are the differing problems faced by TRACON, tower and ground controllers?
3. What sequencing rules do you think the tower controllers use?

Transcribed Image Text:

Error-free control is particularly important where people are being processed, as is the case for these air traffic controllers Source: Arup: