Air Traffic Control Question

murphaph

Hi,
I've just come back from a visit to the main tower and ATC centre for Southern Germany/Austria at Munich Airport. It was very interesting stuff I must say but whilst in the ATC centre I was looking at a map of Europe with all the "tracks" on it and I noticed that almost the entire RoI was marked as "Free Air Space" or something like that, ie, no tracks shown (NI and Donegal had "tracks"). The guy showing me around doesn't have anything to do with that stuff so couldn't explain why it'd be different than elsewhere. Can anyone explain?

slanystu

Hi,

About two years ago the Irish Aviation Authority implemented a project called "Ensure".

This removed all the "tracks" or routes in Irish airspace. Before this the airlines would have to file a long winded route to get across Irish airspace. This would include 5 or 6 points that would in theory have to be overflown.

In reality, the controllers stopped using most of these routes and points years ago. When London ATC passed the traffic to Shannon ATC, 9 times out of 10 the traffic would be cleared direct to the oceanic entry point,eg, BAW123, after STU cleared DCT DOGAL.

The new setup is much clearer. The pilots know what clearance to expect now, and they no longer have to search through a list of points on the FMS to find the one they are cleared to. It also makes the flight planning much easier as there are now only a limited number of intermediate points within Irish airspace (REVNU being one example)

See the map I attached for a before and after comparison!

murphaph

Thanks very much for clearing that up.