A DAY IN THE LIFE OF...
RICHARD PRICE,
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER, JERSEY AIRPORT
One particular shift for an Air Traffic Controller is opening up the airport for the early morning newspaper and freight aircraft arrivals. This means the alarm going off at around 4:30 a.m. to be on site at the Air Traffic Control Centre by 5:15 a.m. Depending on the working position that day, I’ll operate on either radar or in the Tower (note an Air Traffic Controller is not the person waving table tennis bats around as some may think!).
I will run through various checklists to ensure all actions are performed and none forgotten, which is very much run of the mill stuff in aviation as forgetting to do something can be critical. I will then facilitate the first arrival from 6:00 a.m. local, I mention “local” as all times relating to aviation are normally in GMT or “zulu” time as it is often referred to.
I work through my shift until 13:00 p.m. occupying any one of three positions – the Tower where you control aircraft in the immediate vicinity of the Airport; Approach which is a radar position primarily sequencing inbound aircraft for landing and separating them by 3nm horizontally or 1000ft vertically; and the remaining position Zone is again a radar position meeting a similar separation criteria but on a larger scale in The Channel Islands Airspace from surface to 20,000ft covering some 2700 sq. miles. We control all aircraft into and out of C.I. airfields and those transiting through.
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20/20 A day in the life of...
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