ATC Privatization, HR 2997

On Fri, 13 Oct 2017 22:05:33 -0700, tom wrote:

Whether this is what privatization looks like, or if it's just the way
Europe does it, I don't know.

As far as I know air traffic management in the UK is run by a non-
government company and has been since the end of WW2. There was a massive
airspace grab by the airlines in the late 40s/early 50s but that got
fought off and controlled airspace pushed back to reasonable sizes. The
only real issues since I've been flying have been the temporary Olympic
airspace extension over London and the attempted landgrabs by TAG at
Farnborough (still ongoing) and some regional airports with vastly
inflated ideas of their traffic (Norwich, I'm looking at you).

Generally, UK airspace management works fairly well. My club operates
from an ex-RAF bomber field 11 nm west of Cambridge and 22 nm north of
Stanstead. This puts us just 2 nm inside the outer layer of the Stanstead
CTR - not a problem as at this distance we're under the outer layer of
the 'inverted wedding cake', with its lower boundary at 5500 ft. This
isn't usually an issue because its a pretty good day if we can get that
high. Put it this way: I can only remember three flights in 17 years when
I've been at 5000 and climbing over our field. Cambridge (Marshals) has
23,000 movements a year or thereabouts and seems happy with a standard
sized ATZ plus a pair of ILS feathers (we add a margin to both and stay
out of it) and RAF Lakenheath, a bit NE of Cambridge, has a standard
military MATZ. We talk to both if we're passing within 5nm, they talk to
each other and I frequently hear Cambridge Appproach warning their GA and
bizjet traffic about gliders if its a good day. I believe Cambridge has a
FLARM receiver in their tower, and their combination of radar and airband
DF seems able to localise anybody talking to them.

We have good relations with both airfields, getting regular visits from
the USAF at Lakenheath and invitations to tour the tower and workshops at
Marshals.

IME there's no problem with with the UK's 'privatised' ATC, only with a
few greedy airport operators who are getting a lot of pushback via the
mandatory consultation process for airspace alteration.


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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