Flemish regional airports will also receive a digital control tower: “Quantum leap in air traffic safety” | Domestic
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UpdateWithin a few years, air traffic control for the airports of Antwerp, Kortrijk and Ostend will be carried out from one digital control tower. Air traffic controller Skeyes and the Flemish government have reached an agreement on this, it was said on Thursday during the presentation of a prototype of a digital control center that Skeyes has set up at its site in Steenokkerzeel, near Brussels Airport.
A decision must be made this year about where the digital tower for the Flemish regional airports will be located. Six locations are still eligible: three in West Flanders (Diksmuide, Jabbeke, Wevelgem), two in East Flanders (Evergem, Ghent) and one in Antwerp (Grobbendonk). According to the current timing, the digital tower should be operational in 2027 or 2028.
With a digital tower, the air traffic controllers are no longer in a physical control tower at the airport, but there are masts with cameras that transmit images to a room with screens at another location.
Thanks to the cameras, which are equipped with infrared, air traffic controllers can see the aircraft clearly even at night or in fog
“The speed of technological evolution is unimaginable,” said skeyes CEO Johan Decuyper. A few years ago, the idea was to install digital towers only as a backup for the airport control towers, but those plans were quickly adjusted. Because the digital tower means “a quantum leap in air traffic safety,” according to Decuyper. “The new applications will better inform air traffic controllers and alert them to possible risks.” Thanks to the cameras, which are equipped with infrared, among other things, air traffic controllers will be able to clearly see the exact location of aircraft on the screens, even at night or in fog. Additional information can also be projected on each aircraft, and the cameras can, for example, detect drones before they can be seen with the naked eye.
The country’s first digital control tower will be located in Namur. Flight movements to and from Charleroi and Liège airports will be managed there, normally in the course of 2026. The foundation stone of the building that will house the digital control tower was laid about ten days ago. The images from the cameras at Liège airport are already being forwarded to the prototype in Steenokkerzeel and those in Charleroi will soon follow. “They allow the staff to be trained and the installation to be perfected technologically and ergonomics,” so that the digital tower in Namur can be put into use as soon as it is ready, Decuyper said. Afterwards, the test center will receive the images from the Flemish airports to prepare the start-up of the Flemish digital tower.
Also for Brussels Airport
The skeyes CEO is convinced that Brussels Airport will also get a digital tower at a later stage. “We work in steps. First there is the digital tower in Namur, then the one for the Flemish airports will follow,” says Decuyper. “But I am sure that in the long term we will also migrate Brussels Airport to a digital tower.”
With the digital towers, fewer air traffic controllers will be needed in the long term. For example, there is currently a team of supervisors in each airport control tower, but in the digital tower there will only be one team for the different airports that are managed there. And air traffic controllers will be able to obtain multiple licenses, allowing them to guide flights to and from the various airports in the digital tower.
This should allow them to be used more efficiently. According to Peggy Devestel, skeyes’ operations director, an air traffic controller will need up to two weeks of training to switch from on-site air traffic control to a digital tower.
In Norway, traffic at at least eleven airports is already managed from a remote digital control tower.
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