Gate 41What happens inside the control tower?
Who is up in that tall glass room, and what are they looking at?
The control tower is a tall building with a glass room at the top, called the cab, so controllers can see the runways, taxiways and the sky around the airport with their own eyes.
They also use radar and surface displays, but the view from the window is still important. Ground control guides aircraft along taxiways. Tower control clears them to take off and land. At a busy airport these are separate people on separate radio frequencies.
A little deeper
Each controller looks after one area and one radio frequency. When an aircraft moves on, the controller hands it over and tells the pilots which frequency to change to.
Airline dispatchers, such as Elena here, usually work in their airline's own operations centre, but they speak to the tower often, so you can find her in the cab too. The tower also talks to the ramp teams and to approach and departure controllers who handle the aircraft in the air beyond the airport. Every airport arranges this a little differently. Small airports may have one controller doing several jobs, and some have no tower at all.
See it in Gate 41, in the departures hall
Related questions
- Why does a tug push the aircraft backward?
- Why does taxiing take so long?
- How do airport screens work?
People involved
- Ruth KowalskiAir traffic controller
- Elena PetrovaFlight dispatcher / operations controller
- Captain Imani OkaforCaptain (pilot in command)