CHENNAI : Chennai Airport has 500 aircraft flying in and out a day under the watchful and weary eyes of Air Traffic Controllers stationed in the Control Tower which is partitioned into Tower Controller and Surface Movement Controller.
Now, the operations has been hived further to ensure smoother flow of air traffic.Airports Authority of India said Chennai Air Traffic Management has operationalised the Clearance Delivery Unit with a dedicated air traffic controller after hiving off the operations of Surface Movement Controller. This is an international practice at busy airports as per International Civil Aviation Organisation regulations.
Initially, tower controller handles the landing and takeoff of aircraft on the runway while surface movement controller guides the arrivals right from the runway exit points to the parking bays, guides departures right from the parking bays to the beginning of the runways in addition to management of various other aircraft and essential vehicular movements on the critical areas.
In addition to this, Surface Movement Controller is also responsible for regulating departures based on various procedures for capacity-constrained airports, issuing necessary clearances and instructions to departures to different destinations and obtaining various mandatory, pre-departure operational information from pilots.
This helps to considerably enhance safety and efficiency of flight operations as work load of Surface Movement Controller is considerably reduced and he gets more time for surveillance on movement area conflict management. It will also reduce congestion on the ATC communication channel.