Soon the air traffic controllers at Geneva Airport will no longer be on site, but will be controlling from the Skyguide headquarters.

In June, a Skyguide hardware defect caused Swiss airspace to be temporarily closed for several hours. The consequences of this breakdown were flight cancellations and delays, which caused damage in the millions at Swiss, among other things. Now the Swiss air traffic control, which will soon be taking over remote control of the flights at Geneva Airport, in a so-called “Remote Digital Tower” fulfilled how flight telegraph writes.

Planned realization: 2030

As the first international airport in the world, London City Airport has been remotely and digitally controlled since April 2021 after a successful test phase. The second largest airport in Switzerland is now following this example. This decision was made from the on-site inspection to the remote inspection for economic reasons, among other things. As the Geneva Airport control tower is slowly coming of age, it will have to be completely rebuilt in the near future. After a successful preliminary study, the decision is made on a future technology that has already proven its functionality on international bandwidths. In the future, control will be carried out from the Skyguide headquarters in Geneva.

Before the plans can be implemented, however, further investigations are to be carried out. For this reason, it will not be possible to control flights to and from Geneva until 2030 at the earliest.

At the end of 2023, beginning of 2024 there will probably be further detailed investigations with regard to the implementation.

Skyguide spokesperson

This raises the question, WILL this concept also be implemented at national level? So at the same time at the largest airport in Switzerland: Zurich Airport? Skyguide’s answer is no, partly because of the complicated processes due to crossing runways. The goal is to also realize a new control tower at the ZRH in 2030, but here with air traffic controllers on the airport site – completely analogous.

Conclusion on the Remote Tower from Geneva Airport

After the Skyguide breakdown at the beginning of June, there are a number of changes to be made to the control towers in Zurich and Geneva. While air traffic control in Geneva will soon be carried out remotely, in Zurich it will remain on the airport premises. The question is whether the hardware defect this summer shook up the “monopoly in the Swiss sky” a little?

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