Another Good Day at Budapest Ferihegy Airport
On 17/10/2011, in Tower chronicles, by lajos
October the second, 2011. This was an interesting day in the history of Ferihegy Airport. We were privileged to witness the first visit by Airbus’ “jumbo”, the A380.
The expectations? Beyond belief. We were expecting her already during the summer months but she failed to put in an appearance. Probably this only increased the expectations to an even higher level. When about a month ago I heard that she was definitely coming I quickly checked my calendar… I was going to be on day shift! The icing on the cake? I was going to be the tower deputy supervisor (DSV) that day! Knowing this made the preparations all that more special. Whichever way we look at it, this was going to be a special day. Not only because of the actual coming of this giant but also because I could be part of the huge interplay necessary for the reception of such an aircraft. It occurred to me in passing that it was such a pity that real cooperation at the airport only ever happened these days on such special occasions while the rest of the time people are busy tearing each other up… but I am diverging.
The morning of this special day we looked at each other in the parking lot with wondering eyes. Everyone was dressed in their Sunday best. This was done in part on the request of management but I guess we would have worn a shirt anyway in recognition of the day’s significance. It was amusing to ponder that our management had asked for proper dress in order to maintain our company’s “image”… Does it have an image? This fact has somehow failed to reach us, at least in the form of a blue shirt with the result that we were now sporting shirts in every conceivable shade of blue. But never mind… head for the tower.
We had received all relevant documents and instructions the week before and we were preparing for the big day accordingly. We checked everything from the official approvals to the applicable procedures and armed with knowledge my little lady boss and yours truly went to Terminal 2 for a final briefing. I was surprised (yes surprised however unusual this may sound these days…) to see how many people attended the briefing. A lot of strangers were sitting around the big table, I saw almost no familiar faces. But we knew the main coordinator (he also knew us). He started by explaining the 380’s reception plan. It was strange seeing him start the coordination with us and I could see on the faces of the others that for them, we were the “unknown aliens”… Anyway, in the end everyone had a final rundown of their tasks and we were ready to return to the tower.
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It is not easy to work with the airlines – Why the SJU should be careful
On 07/09/2011, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
Having airspace users on board in SESAR is an important development by anyone’s measure. Thinking that having individual airlines involved is the same as having the industry involved is a grave mistake that can cost dearly to all concerned.
The signs of trouble are already there. What do you think about there being a hard-won agreement from the airspace users at one or two pretty high level meetings and then the same users withdrawing their agreement just a few weeks later? The result is frustration on the part of the other partners (ANSPs in this case), confusion about where things were going and, worst of all, loss of credibility of the airlines.
It would be easy to wave this away by just saying that the airline people in the meeting were not up to speed with the subjects being discussed and so they agreed to something they did not fully understand. This would be a rather unfortunate situation and no excuse at all but the actual reality is even worse.
The problem is not new and it is called the industry voice, or rather, the lack of it.
Until about a decade ago, IATA had been recognized by its members as the industry voice on all technical aspects of air traffic management. One of the most important, and difficult, tasks of IATA’s experts had been to forge this common voice, bringing together the widely differing interests and business models of the member airlines so that to the outside world only consolidated, well defined requirements were communicated. This was vital because otherwise the ATM and avionics industries would have been totally confused and at a loss as to what they should develop to meet the airlines’ diverse requirements.
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Fly4D takes off
On 22/06/2011, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
The Fly4D consortium – led by Airbus with Cassidian, Honeywell, Lufthansa Systems and Sabre Airline Solutions– has been awarded a contract to perform SESAR sub-work package 11.1 (Flight and Wing Operations Centres). This challenging work addresses the definition, the development and the validation of Airspace User’s future flight planning and control systems and procedures in support of the SESAR ATM Target Concept. The selected consortium consists of world leaders in this domain, and will be working closely with the SESAR JU Members and overall the airspace user community on this critical topic. First validation results are already expected by the end of 2012. The contract is signed by EUROCONTROL on behalf of the SESAR Joint Undertaking.
The SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) programme is one of the most ambitious research and development projects ever launched by the European Union. The foundation of the SESAR ATM Target Concept is trajectory-based operations. A trajectory representing the business/mission intentions of the Airspace Users, and integrating Air Traffic Management and airport constraints, is elaborated and agreed for each flight. Trajectory based operations ensure that the Airspace User flies its trajectory close to its intent in the most efficient way.
Patrick KY, Executive Director of the SESAR Joint Undertaking commented: “We are the first in the world to start to integrate ATM future concepts with airlines operations. This is truly a breakthrough in our sector of activity.”
Are Brussels Airlines and Brussels Airport loosing it?
On 20/04/2011, in CDM, by steve
I have written in the past about the curious happenings that seem to affect Brussels Airlines’ flights from Vienna. You can read about them here and here. Last Friday however I got proof that flights TO Vienna can also be jinxed… Sadly, the event I am about to relate to you also shows that collaborative decision making (CDM) as practiced to-day in Brussels needs to be improved substantially.
SN runs a very convenient service to Vienna, leaving Brussels at 0705 and arriving in the Austrian capital shortly after 0830. With the new train connection at the airport you can reach most meeting locations for a comfortable 1000 start.
I was at Brussels airport early last Friday, 15 April because exceptionally I was planning to entrust my little trolley bag to the care of the “system”. As you will see, this was an exceptionally bad idea. Having checked in at home, baggage drop-off was a breeze and in no time at all I was through security and on my way up to the gate area.
Brussels Airport is one of those places where they use the totally idiotic and counter- productive idea of posting the gate numbers at the last possible moment believing that leaving passengers clueless about the gate would generate more revenue at the shops… In fact they are only “punishing” those who check in at home and who do not have bags to drop off since they will indeed not learn the gate number until the airport decides to disclose this closely guarded secret; all others get the gate number scribbled on their boarding pass by the helpful airlines (who probably hate this selfish attitude of the airports as much as I do).
This morning I was among those happy souls “in the know” and I walked straight to the gate, casting a sad eye at the group of imptient passengers milling around in front of (and NOT inside) the bar waiting for their gate to be posted. At the gate itself a sad sight greeted me. There was no aircraft at the other end of the air-bridge.
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Relative secrets
On 22/07/2010, in Flashback, by steve
I have an old book here, entitled “On the highways of the sky”. Published in the 60’s in Hungary and translated from the original East-German edition, it did reflect the spirit of the times but for me at age 13 or 14 it was the most wonderful book ever. It talked about all the fascinating things that were already pulling me towards a career in aviation.
There was a sentence in the book, advising air travelers to pack their cameras in the checked baggage. Of course… making photos from aircraft, even passenger aircraft, must have been anathema to the regimes in Eastern Europe back then. I remembered this sentence every time we flew and as a kid often wondered what the always polite and nice Malev cabin crew would have done had I kept my camera with me. On a flight with Aeroflot with a cabin crew perfectly capable of upsetting the balance of the aircraft had they congregated at the aft galley, I did not even wonder any more…
Several years later my dream came true and I started working at Ferihegy airport. Like all such places, Ferihegy too had its share of old stories and as the new boy in town, I was an avid listener whenever the old hands started to reminisce.
One story had a particular relevance to my earlier experience with the camera…
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Conversion course – Does anyone understand the airlines?
On 22/06/2010, in Airline corner, by steve
My fascination with aircraft started at about age 5 and I first heard about air traffic control when I was 16. Gabi Nemeth who made music besides being an air traffic controller was on a TV talk show and he made a gallant effort to explain what ATC was all about… He must have done a great job because I for one understood what he was saying and from then on wanted nothing better than to be a controller. Being accepted to the physics faculty of a University in Budapest almost derailed my destiny but I corrected it soon enough and on my 21st birthday I issued the first landing clearance all on my own!
In the years that followed I collected just about every qualification a controller can have and added a bit of computer programming skill also. In time I exchanged the microphone for a desk at ICAO in Paris and later, for a post involved in building the new Amsterdam ATC system, AAA. But I never thought of myself as anything other than an air traffic controller. I was also very much convinced that what I was doing with or without the microphone, was the best possible course for our charges, the aircraft and their operators. Giving them directs, shortening the tracks wherever possible and the many other “treats” all appeared as going out of our way to help them.
My first exposure to IATA was at the very first Flow East meeting which was held in Budapest. We knew relatively little about this mighty organization or how it worked and were generally a bit suspicious of its motives… They sent a diminutive Swissair captain as one of their representatives and what he lacked in stature was more than made up for by his forceful personality and very clear words blasting us for the very poor job we were doing. He did not spare the civil aviation authorities either, drawing multiple color lines on a wall chart showing where the air routes should be in his view… Very few of the existing routes were where he thought they should be of course. His propensity for drawing colored lines earned him the nick “Tintoretto”. I remember how deeply hurt I felt by all the verbal abuse but also the feeling that may be, just may be, Tintoretto had a point. Had I known what profound effect his colored lines would have on my life many years later, I would have kissed the little captain on the brow for sure.
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EFB Users Forum and Delta Expo – 21-22 April 2010, Atlanta, GA.
On 12/03/2010, in Events, by steve
The first EFB Users Forum meeting will be hosted by Delta Air Lines at their world headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. The meeting will be chaired by Captain Alan Kasher, Southwest, and Captain Andreas Ritter, Lufthansa.
The EFB Users Forum was formed by airlines to enable aircraft operators to maximize the operational benefit and the economic benefit of EFB equipment and services. This activity is a coordinating activity among airlines and cargo carriers, aircraft manufacturers, EFB suppliers on issues of mutual interest leading to the identification and resolution of all types of issues related to EFB.
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Should MALEV be saved?
On 01/12/2009, in Airline corner, by cleo
Do you remember the term “flag-carrier”? This was usually applied to the airline of a country which was seen as the object of national pride. As recently as a decade ago, when new States came into being, no matter how small, one of their first acts had been to create a national airline (often followed by an air traffic control centre… but that is another story). Of course the aviation marketplace has changed in a big way, there is intense competition between companies, and being a flag-carrier has all but lost its patina.
Airlines have disappeared from the scene, some are gone completely (SABENA) others live on wearing the guise of companies that took them over (Northwest) and still others have kept their colors and name but are now just a division in a mega-carrier (Austrian and Brussels Airlines in Lufthansa, KLM in Air France). Most of them had one thing in common: their long (and not so long) term prospects were all but rosy. Surviving on national pride was not an option.
The problem with Malev is that many in Hungary want to save it because they believe that a country must have a national airline. They also claim that a country’s independence is reduced if it does not have its own airline. These are the worst possible reason for trying to save an ailing company and it costs a lot of taxpayer money before the company folds anyway.
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Anniversary – The fall of the Berlin Wall
On 01/11/2009, in Anniversaries, by steve
20 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 2009
Roger-Wilco deals with politics only in as much as it is aero-politics so you may wonder why we would include in our list of anniversaries the fall of the Berlin Wall now 20 years ago on 9 November 1989. As you will see, this momentous event had affected the course of history, the lives of millions and air traffic management itself in ways more than qualifying it for inclusion. But first a little history.
The first cracks
The fall of the Wall actually started some 690 kilometers (383 NM) away on the Western border of Hungary. By early summer in 1989 more than ten
When the iron curtain opened...
thousand East-German tourists were camping in Budapest and near the Austro-Hungarian border, planning never to return to Erich Honecker’s Germany. It was a sign of the times that a few months earlier the Hungarians and the Austrians held and open-border day (the iron curtain was still more or less in place otherwise) and a number of East-Germans, miraculously aware of what was happening, used this chance to walk over to Austria. In spite of forceful protests from East Germany, in August the Hungarians opened their border and allowed the East-Germans to leave if they wanted to. More then 13000 left in the first mass-exodus of East Germans since the erection of the Wall in 1961.
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High price to pay
On 23/09/2009, in Viewpoint, by steve
Driving to Brussels airport is easy these days and parking is a cinch. The new parking garages are ready and even the ridiculously narrow space between the hotel and the terminal (where were the airport planners when that thing was put there?) has been rearranged to make better use of what is available. Conspicuously missing though is the expanded European hub of DHL…
DHL had great plans for Brussels Airport, unfortunately all of them involving aircraft. They waited a long time while the airport, ministries, local and federal governments and who knows what other organizations wrangled, argued and made impossible claims and counter-claims. At the end, almost unnoticed among the general clamor, DHL packed up and moved to Leipzig where it was welcome to grow.
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A short left turn
On 01/09/2009, in Flashback, by steve
The arrival of Lufthansa’s shiny new Boeing 727 in Budapest was an event in itself. The flight from Frankfurt was almost always on time, the 727 looking like it had come from Boeing’s delivery centre the day before… We learnt early that she could climb and descend like no other jet serving Budapest and as such she was every controller’s best friend.
Photo Rafael Klöpper
Although one did not play favorites with any airline, it was hard to refuse when an LH skipper asked for a particular runway or other small “favor” pilots sometimes requested. After several months of uneventful operation one morning we noticed that the return flight plan was filed to Belgrade rather than Frankfurt. So what gives?
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