Skyguide
Encyclopedia
skyguide is the air navigation services company
that controls Swiss airspace
.
It is a private law Swiss public limited company, responsible on behalf of the Confederation for safety in the whole of Swiss airspace and parts of the neighbouring countries of Germany
, Austria
, France
and Italy
. In Swiss airspace, this covers both civil and military air traffic control. Skyguide is headquartered on the grounds of Geneva International Airport in Meyrin
, near Geneva
.
In 2001, its name was changed from Swisscontrol to skyguide (officially lower case written) and its management was headed by Alain Rossier. Skyguide is supervised by the Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC). The main shareholder, with 99.91 percent of the skyguide share capital
is the Swiss Confederation, which is also represented on the board of directors. Around 1400 people work for skyguide, about two-thirds of them in the provision of air navigation services, a quarter in technical services and the rest mainly in administration. Since 1 October 2007, skyguide has been headed by Daniel Weder.
(ICAO), Eurocontrol (European organisation for aviation safety) and the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation
(CANSO). Skyguide has had a subsidiary company in Belgium
since the end of 2000 called Skynav, which serves as a link to the European Union
.
. The UAC (Upper Area Control) in Geneva should have become operational in 2006, but this was suspended by the Federal Office for Civil Aviation (BAZL) because of inadequate safety documentation.
Other skyguide locations are at Berne Airport, Buochs airfield, Grenchen airfield, Lugano-Agno airport and St Gallen-Altenrhein airport and several military airfields. The locations used primarily by the military are at Alpnach
, Dübendorf
, Emmen
, Meiringen
and Payerne
. Locarno
and Sion
are mixed civil-military aerodromes. At the airoport les Eplatures, air navigation services are delegated to the operator.
. On 10 May 1928, the name of Marconi Radio AG was changed to Radio Schweiz AG (RSAG) to emphasise its Swiss national character. On 1 January 1931, the Confederation charged the RSAG with the provision of air navigation services in Switzerland.
Until the end of the Second World War, RSAG was primarily engaged in serving the telegraphic communications needs of the Confederation. Only on 21 December 1948, after concluding an agreement with the Confederation under which the Confederation and the airports would bear the cost of air navigation services, did RSAG start to monitor the airspace.
On 1 January 1988, RSAG’s air navigation activities were restructured and brought into the new nationalised company, Swisscontrol, whose headquarters is in Bern. Swisscontrol was converted into a public limited company in 1996 and the headquarters transferred from Bern to Meyrin
.
At the beginning of 2001, civil and military air navigation services, which had been separate until then, were united in a single company, called skyguide. Skyguide thus became the first air navigation services provider in Europe to control the whole of its country’s airspace.
On 15 March 2006 , BAZL prevented the air navigation services provider skyguide from starting operations in the single control centre for Switzerland, its Upper Airspace Control Center Switzerland (UAC-CH) in Geneva. But the UAC-CH project nevertheless allowed the Geneva upper airspace to be progressiveley operating with 'stripless' environment since 2005. A detailed internal BAZL report was published on 3 April 2006, listing the serious omissions made by skyguide.
On 20 December 2006 the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) awarded skyguide the certification for the Single European Sky
(SES).
Air Navigation Service Provider
An Air Navigation Service Provider is the organisation that separates aircraft on the ground or in flight in a dedicated block of airspace on behalf of a state or a number of states....
that controls Swiss airspace
Airspace
Airspace means the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere....
.
It is a private law Swiss public limited company, responsible on behalf of the Confederation for safety in the whole of Swiss airspace and parts of the neighbouring countries of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. In Swiss airspace, this covers both civil and military air traffic control. Skyguide is headquartered on the grounds of Geneva International Airport in Meyrin
Meyrin
Meyrin is a municipality of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It is the city located nearest to the CERN particle physics laboratory.Meyrin was originally a small agricultural village until the 1950s, when construction of CERN began just to the north...
, near Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
.
In 2001, its name was changed from Swisscontrol to skyguide (officially lower case written) and its management was headed by Alain Rossier. Skyguide is supervised by the Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC). The main shareholder, with 99.91 percent of the skyguide share capital
Share capital
Share capital or issued capital or capital stock refers to the portion of a company's equity that has been obtained by trading stock to a shareholder for cash or an equivalent item of capital value...
is the Swiss Confederation, which is also represented on the board of directors. Around 1400 people work for skyguide, about two-thirds of them in the provision of air navigation services, a quarter in technical services and the rest mainly in administration. Since 1 October 2007, skyguide has been headed by Daniel Weder.
Partners
Skyguide’s most important partners are the International Civil Aviation OrganizationInternational Civil Aviation Organization
The International Civil Aviation Organization , pronounced , , is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It codifies the principles and techniques of international air navigation and fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth...
(ICAO), Eurocontrol (European organisation for aviation safety) and the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation
Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation
CANSO – The Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation – is the global voice of the companies that provide air traffic control, and represents the interests of Air Navigation Service Providers worldwide...
(CANSO). Skyguide has had a subsidiary company in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
since the end of 2000 called Skynav, which serves as a link to the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
.
Skyguide in figures
Skyguide controls around 3380 IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flights a day. In 2006, skyguide counted 1,162,078 flights, of which 729,990 transited the airspace without landing or takeoff. Its income in 2006 was CHF 341.10 million and net profit was CHF 18.79 million.Locations
The most important locations are the two Area Control Centers (ACC) at Zurich Airport and Geneva Airport, which is also the location of the administrative headquarters of skyguide. In 2008, the Terminal Control Center Zurich was moved to new buildings at the Military airfield in DübendorfDübendorf
Dübendorf is a municipality in the district of Uster in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.It is a suburb of Zürich in Switzerland with a population of about 23,000 . It is the fourth largest city in the canton, after Zürich, Winterthur, and Uster.-History:Dübendorf is first mentioned in 946 as...
. The UAC (Upper Area Control) in Geneva should have become operational in 2006, but this was suspended by the Federal Office for Civil Aviation (BAZL) because of inadequate safety documentation.
Other skyguide locations are at Berne Airport, Buochs airfield, Grenchen airfield, Lugano-Agno airport and St Gallen-Altenrhein airport and several military airfields. The locations used primarily by the military are at Alpnach
Alpnach
Alpnach is a village in the canton of Obwalden in Switzerland.-Geography:Alpnach has an area, , of . Of this area, 32.1% is used for agricultural purposes, while 54.1% is forested...
, Dübendorf
Dübendorf
Dübendorf is a municipality in the district of Uster in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland.It is a suburb of Zürich in Switzerland with a population of about 23,000 . It is the fourth largest city in the canton, after Zürich, Winterthur, and Uster.-History:Dübendorf is first mentioned in 946 as...
, Emmen
Emmen, Switzerland
Emmen is a city in the district of Hochdorf in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland.-Geography:Emmen has an area of . Of this area, 46.6% is used for agricultural purposes, while 18.2% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 33.3% is settled and the remainder is non-productive . , 18.19% of the...
, Meiringen
Meiringen
-References:...
and Payerne
Payerne
Payerne is a municipality in the Swiss canton of Vaud. It was the seat of the district of Payerne, and is now part of the district of Broye-Vully....
. Locarno
Locarno
Locarno is the capital of the Locarno district, located on the northern tip of Lake Maggiore in the Swiss canton of Ticino, close to Ascona at the foot of the Alps. It has a population of about 15,000...
and Sion
Sion, Switzerland
Sion is the capital of the Swiss canton of Valais. it had a population of .Landmarks include the Basilique de Valère and Château de Tourbillon. Sion has an airfield for civilian and military use, which, because of its location in a valley, causes a reasonable amount of noise pollution. FC Sion...
are mixed civil-military aerodromes. At the airoport les Eplatures, air navigation services are delegated to the operator.
History
In 1922 the Swiss made an agreement with wireless telegraph. Marconi Radio AG, the Swiss subsidiary, opened on 23 February that year for the development of wireless telegraphy, after the First World War had demonstrated the significance of this kind of telecommunicationTelecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
. On 10 May 1928, the name of Marconi Radio AG was changed to Radio Schweiz AG (RSAG) to emphasise its Swiss national character. On 1 January 1931, the Confederation charged the RSAG with the provision of air navigation services in Switzerland.
Until the end of the Second World War, RSAG was primarily engaged in serving the telegraphic communications needs of the Confederation. Only on 21 December 1948, after concluding an agreement with the Confederation under which the Confederation and the airports would bear the cost of air navigation services, did RSAG start to monitor the airspace.
On 1 January 1988, RSAG’s air navigation activities were restructured and brought into the new nationalised company, Swisscontrol, whose headquarters is in Bern. Swisscontrol was converted into a public limited company in 1996 and the headquarters transferred from Bern to Meyrin
Meyrin
Meyrin is a municipality of the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It is the city located nearest to the CERN particle physics laboratory.Meyrin was originally a small agricultural village until the 1950s, when construction of CERN began just to the north...
.
At the beginning of 2001, civil and military air navigation services, which had been separate until then, were united in a single company, called skyguide. Skyguide thus became the first air navigation services provider in Europe to control the whole of its country’s airspace.
On 15 March 2006 , BAZL prevented the air navigation services provider skyguide from starting operations in the single control centre for Switzerland, its Upper Airspace Control Center Switzerland (UAC-CH) in Geneva. But the UAC-CH project nevertheless allowed the Geneva upper airspace to be progressiveley operating with 'stripless' environment since 2005. A detailed internal BAZL report was published on 3 April 2006, listing the serious omissions made by skyguide.
On 20 December 2006 the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) awarded skyguide the certification for the Single European Sky
Single European Sky
The Single European Sky is a European Commission initiative by which the design, management and regulation of airspace will be coordinated throughout the European Union ....
(SES).
Future projects
Taking into account the lessons-learned after UAC-CH, skyguide plans to extend a stripless harmonized environment over the whole Swiss ACC airspace by end of 2014.Airspace incidents
- 2002 Überlingen mid-air collision: On 1 July 2002, a Tupolev 154 of the Russian Bashkirian Airlines (Republic of BashkortostanBashkortostanThe Republic of Bashkortostan , also known as Bashkiria is a federal subject of Russia . It is located between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains. Its capital is the city of Ufa...
) and a Boeing 757Boeing 757The Boeing 757 is a mid-size, narrow-body twin-engine jet airliner manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Passenger versions of the twinjet have a capacity of 186 to 289 persons and a maximum range of , depending on variant and cabin configuration...
of DHL ExpressDHL ExpressDHL Express is a division of the German logistics company Deutsche Post providing international express mail services. DHL is a world market leader in sea and air mail....
collided at a height of 12,000 meters in southern German airspace over ÜberlingenÜberlingenÜberlingen is a city on the northern shore of Lake Constance . After the city of Friedrichshafen, it is the second largest city in the Bodenseekreis , and a central point for the outlying communities...
on Lake Constance, controlled by skyguide. 71 people died. In February 2004, Peter Nielsen, the air traffic controller on duty for skyguide on the night of the accident, was stabbed by Vitaly KaloyevVitaly KaloyevVitaly Konstantinovich Kaloyev is an architect and deputy minister of housing from North Ossetia, Russia, known for his 2004 murder of Peter Nielsen in the Swiss town of Kloten. Kaloyev's family died aboard Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937, which collided with another aircraft over Germany in 2002...
, an Ossetian relative of victims of the collision. In May 2004, an air accident investigation report by the German air accident investigation office (BFU), said that, as well as the errors made by the air traffic controller, the pilots of the Russian aircraft, the management of skyguide and the Swiss aviation authorities also bore significant levels of responsibility for the accident.
- On 8 February 2007, a critical incident known as an airprox occurred over the Lac d'Annecy in the airspace south of Geneva. A Lockheed C-130 Hercules of the Algerian air force and a Tupolev of the Kazakh State Air Company Berkut undercut the minimum prescribed separation distance and, according to radar records, came within 30 meters of each other vertically and 740 meters laterally. The Tupolev had earlier received permission to climb from 7300 meters (FL 240) to approximately 7900 Meter ( FLFlight levelA Flight Level is a standard nominal altitude of an aircraft, in hundreds of feet. This altitude is calculated from the International standard pressure datum of 1013.25 hPa , the average sea-level pressure, and therefore is not necessarily the same as the aircraft's true altitude either...
260) while the Hercules flew at a constant height of 7600 meters (FL 250). A trainee air traffic controller was on duty during the incident, supervised by an instructor. When the warning system reported the conflict at FL 250 to the air navigation service, the instructor order the Tupolev to climb at the highest possible rate to FL 300.
External links
- Web presence of skyguide
- skyguide activities in connection with the air accident over Überlingen (PDF)
- Description of the Air Traffic Controller job at skyguide, Switzerland.
- Air Traffic Controller recruiting page at skyguide, Switzerland.
Articles
- Nacktes Chaos bei skyguide, BAZL criticises the management of the Swiss air navigation service massively, NZZ on Sunday, 9 April 2006 (German)
- Nacht der Kollision, Night of the collision, What happened on the night of the crash? A record based on exclusive investigation dossiers, Das Magazin, 12 May 2007 (German)