Implementation Prospects of the Remote Tower Concept in Ukraine

Abstract

The real cost of the air travel and air transportation has been decreasing over the past years making air transportation more accessible and thus leading to an increase in the demand for it. This allowed to expand the air connectivity network and provide more destinations for the air travel, including smaller regional airports. One of the components of the cost of the air travel is air navigation service costs for the provision of services by air navigation service providers and these costs are flat-rate costs. For small regional airports with low and/or irregular traffic these costs might be a burden limiting their development. Remote tower concept developed as part of the Single European Sky air traffic management Research program aims at optimising and reducing costs for the provision of air navigation services at small airports allowing them to better utilise resources and improve their profitability. Most of the air traffic in Ukraine is handled by a few strategic airports while small regional airports handle only a few flights a day and in order to provide air traffic services for those flights the regional airports are equipped with local aerodrome control service facilities. Due to the low traffic at the regional airports, resources and facilities aren't used in the most efficient way. The purpose of this work is to investigate the feasibility of implementation of the remote tower concept at Ukrainian airports to improve the cost efficiency of the provision of air traffic services at the airports and correspondingly decrease the cost of the air travel to the regional airports in Ukraine.