Air traffic control at Rouen Vallée de Seine airport, on the eastern plateau (Seine-Maritime), is carried out under the on-call regime during the confinement linked to Covid-19.
Posted on Apr 29, 20 at 2:12 p.m.
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In our article on the action of the Samu 76 helicopter during the Covid-19 health crisis, we wrote that there was hardly any activity left.Rouen Vallée de Seine airport in Boos (Seine-Maritime) and that the control tower itself was deserted. However, this is not entirely the case, as Arnauld Cosyn, air traffic controller at Boos, points out.
“Currently, and this is not specific to Boos airport, but almost across France, airspace is not always open. But that doesn’t mean there’s no one at the control tower, ”corrects Arnauld Cosyn. The air traffic controller explains that the authorities and civil aviation have taken the decision to close the airspaces, while setting up periodic penalty payments, which result in operational telephone hotlines. “We can reopen the space at any time, if the request is made, for medical flights for example,” said the air traffic controller.
“Many would have preferred not to close at all”
Regarding the Samu helicopter, which therefore performs several rotations per day, Arnaud Cosyn explains that the pilot is fully qualified and competent to organize his flights in “self-information.” This is how it works in most airports today. For the weather, for example, he can fully estimate the conditions himself. ” But of course, the possibility of using air traffic control remains possible thanks to the on-call service.
“In our team in Boos, many would have preferred not to close,” said Arnauld Cosyn, who reports that two suspected Covid-19 contamination have been detected in the team. But if a presence was requested at the control tower, the rules would apply to be present and respect the health protocol, with all barrier gestures and the required distances. Arnauld Cosyn was scheduled to be on standby at the control tower as early as the middle of last week.
The penalty: the best alternative
However, the frequency of thefts is currently reduced to its smallest expression, the solution of the penalty appeared to civil aviation as the most appropriate to deal with any eventuality. Arnauld Cosyn believes that there is at least one lesson to be learned from this crisis: while there is still little, the subject of the relocation of air traffic control was posed on certain sites, he notes indeed that air traffic controllers are good and essential relays, notably at Paris-Vatry airport in Marne, where the world’s largest cargo plane, the Antonov An-225 Mriya, recently landed, to deliver eight million masks to combat the spread of Covid-19.
Read also: Rouen Seine Valley Airport: new fears of relocation for air traffic controllers
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