Swedavia’s  northernmost air transport hub, Kiruna Airport, is the first of the Swedish airport operator’s airports to introduce remote tower services. Air traffic at the airport is now being managed from Stockholm Arlanda and the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration’s new remote tower centre.

The remote tower centre is located immediately adjacent to the administration’s air traffic control centre, from which much of the air traffic in Sweden is managed.

Swedavia’s President and CEO, Jonas Abrahamsson, said it was “naturally gratifying” to be taking the first step towards remote services at our airports after many years of intense work and collaboration with the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration. “Launching the services at Kiruna Airport is a milestone in Swedavia’s digitisation and innovation strategy and part of our continuous work to develop the airports of the future in line with our connectivity mission.”

Swedavia and the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration signed a declaration of intent to study conditions for remote tower servcies in 2016. In 2017 an agreement was signed to set up these services at four of Swedavia’s airports including Kirun Airport. The other three Swedavia hubs: Umeå Airport, Åre Östersund Airport and Malmö Airport will introduce remote tower services before the end of 2022. Remote tower services are already in operation in Sweden as well as internationally.

“We now have new opportunities for more efficient airport operations, and at the same time we safeguard important regional access by ensuring redundancy and enabling flexible opening hours. We look forward to good collaboration in the continued work to place the system in service at our other airports,” added Abrahamsson.

The new remote tower services at Kiruna Airport were developed by Saab and includes 14 cameras, which provide a 360-degree view of the airport and its surroundings, replacing the current control tower service on site at the airport.

“One of the greatest advantages that we see with the transition to remote tower services is that the technology will make it easier for us to ensure our preparedness with air ambulance flights 24 hours a day, but it will also make our mission to provide connectivity with schedules passenger service easier,” stated Kirunn Airport’s Director, Andreas Fredriksson.

The introduction of remote air traffic services at Kiruna Airport follows the switch to remote tower services at London City Airport in the UK just one month ago.

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