Flight operations at Dresden Airport to be monitored from Leipzig from 2025 onwards

Flight operations at Dresden Airport will not be monitored from Leipzig until the end of 2025. The changeover will therefore take place three years later than originally planned, announced Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS) on Friday. The "Sächsische Zeitung" had previously reported on this. After Saarbrücken and Erfurt, Dresden would be the third remote-controlled airport in Germany.

One of the reasons for the delay was supply chain problems and coronavirus measures at the start of the project. In addition, the retraining of air traffic controllers was delayed somewhat due to the low number of flights during the pandemic. The trainees had to "wait for real flight operations" to practice.

The airport in Saarbrücken has been controlled by the Remote Tower Center (RTC) in Leipzig since 2018 and Erfurt Airport since 2022. With this technology, images from video and infrared cameras are sent from the approach and departure zones as well as from the traffic areas of an airport to the remote control center. There, air traffic controllers can follow and control events on large monitors.

DFS controls a good 2.8 million flight movements in German airspace. More than a third of the 5700 employees work as air traffic controllers in control centers and control towers.