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Air traffic control keeps our skies safe
One of the world’s most stressful jobs is being an air traffic controller. These are the people who ensure that the many, many airplanes in the skies above our airports every day travel safely. Air traffic controllers have to co-ordinate the movements of thousands of aircraft, making sure that two aircraft are never in the same place at the same time. They guide aircraft around bad weather and direct them during takeoff and landing from airports. They also make sure that there are few delays, so that people can actually go on their holidays instead of being left hanging around the airport. Challenging Lilian Cassin works for the Irish Aviation Authority and she is based at Dublin Airport. On a busy day, Dublin can be one of the busiest airports in Europe, handling more than 700 aircraft. “We have to ensure all of those aircraft land and take off safely and in the most efficient way,” she says. Only one runway can be used at any one time because aircraft need to land and take off into the wind. To make sure that aircraft are safe from each other, air traffic controllers use separations to give each one its own piece of the sky. Aircraft can be separated vertically (by 1,000 feet difference in height) or by five miles lateral (horizontal) distance. Control tower Air traffic controllers work in teams and constantly communicate with each other. There are many different jobs in the control tower:
Before a plane departs, the pilot has to tell air traffic control:
Controllers rely on a lot of technology to help them do their job. The Irish Aviation Authority calls its air traffic management system CAIRDE, which stands for Civil Aviation Integrated Radar Display Equipment. This system has been in place since 2004 and cost €115m in total to implement. Learn more: Find out what you need to be an air traffic controller Learn how planes fly Read more about how air traffic control works |
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