Building the new control tower.
Photo: Danny Sadeh
New, highly advanced control tower coming to Ben-Gurion Airport
The new tower is taller, more sophisticated, and has a broader range of sight. Authorities hope that it will aid in efficiently and safely directing the massive amount or air traffic that is expected to go through the airport in the summer months.
This summer is expected to be the busiest in the history of Ben-Gurion Airport (TLV). Tourists may not be coming in record numbers, but millions of Israelis will surely be traveling in and out of the holy land, creating plenty of traffic. Airplane traffic at Ben Gurion is expected to rise 10 percent – five times that of the average worldwide rise. To prepare for this jump, Ben Gurion Ariport has recently begun operating its new control tower.
The tower is one of the most sophisticated in the world. It oversees everything that happens at the airport, the parking lot, the runways, and more. Each air traffic controller can determine the height of their own desk and computers. Every worker has several monitors that allow them to see everything that takes place in the air and on the ground.
The new control tower when it was still under construction. (Photo: Danny Sadeh)
"There was quite a bit of criticism about this tower in the past," said Udi Baroz, deputy director-general of the Israel Airports Authority, "but those who recommended the height, the placement, and the view angle were experts from the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Due to the tower's height, it can control the entire airport, and due to the large windows, who's phrames are hyper-thin, controllers have nearly no 'dead spots' to obstruct their view of what happens on the airport's areal side."
Amir Weinstein, shift manager at the new tower, mentioned that "in the previous tower, which was half as tall as the current one, there were a lot of blind spots. That isn't the case today. An air traffic controller in the tower has a continuous view of the plane sees everything that goes on, including on the farthest runways. This is ergonomics on a scale that we have not yet seen, with the capacity to train new controllers while working, with very comfortable standing positions, with capacity for future development, and a human-machine interface that has improved significantly. Technologically, we have the best systems you could expect (to have)."
