LHR airport/ATC
 

Good article in this months Air and Space magazine about the airport and ATC. Not sure if the magazine is readily available on your side of the pond however.

Available here www.airspacemag.com/issues/2007/december-january/heathrow.php

Ooooh that might be the nice man I did the interview with. I wonder if he quoted me correctly :)

It's online
http://www.airspacemag.com/issues/20...y/heathrow.php

<<Wooldridge hits the gas and twists the wheel like he’s dodging a semi. The SUV lurches off the pavement at about 50 mph and jounces across the grassy shoulder as the tires of a Jet Airways Airbus A340-300 from India slam onto the runway, the airliner thundering past.>>

Yeah.. I read a similar article somewhere else about the air traffic controller "barking orders into his microphone". Dear Lord.......

Take it with a grain of salt, the article is lavishes praise for the most part.

"monitors in the center of the room show how many minutes each one is behind its estimated time of arrival"

Is that true and if so what is it based on, the ATC flight plan or information from the airlines.

I recall from my ops days that ETA's are far from being exact. And that was even if the flight took the flight planned route.

clicker

extract :
This is life at Europe’s busiest international airport,

Extract ACI EUROPE last report:

Paris (CDG) : 522 619 mvts
London (LHR) : 477 884 mvts

A7700, when 'they' say that Heathrow's the busiest international airport, it's determined from the passenger figures. Doesn't mean a thing in terms of ATC, but then passenger numbers mean more to the 'man on the street'.

Further to the pax numbers it is the international transfer passengers of which Heathrow shifted about 61 million compared to LFPG at approx 50 million in the rolling 12 months to the end of August 2006. Heathrow ranks third (approx 68 million ppa) in terms of total passenger numbers behind KATL (approx 86 million ppa) and KORD (approx 76 million ppa). In terms of aircraft movements Heathrow is 17th compared to EDDF 16th and LFPG 11th.

Heathrow is probably pretty high in the movements list of just two runway airports though....

Airports in order of movements and number of Runways. I have no idea how the runways might be utilised. The number of runways at each airport in the US is from airnav, movements from ACI.

KATL 5 runways. 980,386 movements
KORD 6 runways. 972,248 movements
KDFW 7 runways. 711,878 movements
KLAX 4 runways. 650,629 movements
KLAS 4 runways. 605,046 movements
KIAH 5 runways. 562,966 movements
KDEN 6 runways. 560,669 movements
KPHX 3 runways. 555,256 movements
KPHL 4 runways. 535,666 movements
KMSP 4 runways. 532,240 movements
LFPG 4 runways. 522,619 movements
KDTW 6 runways. 521,899 movements
KCLT 3 runways. 521,878 movements
KIAD 3 runways. 509,468 movements
KCVG 4 runways. 496,364 movements
EDDF 3 runways. 490,147 movements
EGLL 2 runways. 477,884 movements
KSLC 4 runways. 455,472 movements

Interesting, thanks Geffen. Looks like LHR is way ahead of movements per runway!

I was just thinking that PPrune ATC issues was not really fitted for "the man on the street". And speaking about ATC means speaking about movements.
But it is true if you apply the "aircraft type traffic structure" from Tokyo Haneda ( Top 10 for passengers but far away in the list for movements) to congested european airports, a lot of ATC problems are solved.

Aaaaah, so that is why they got rid of 23, to look better in the league tables.;)