For the first time in its history, Inverness Airport is providing its own radar service to aircraft at the busiest airport in the Highlands and Islands.

The completion of phase one of the radar project sees HIAL’s own radar controllers providing air traffic services to flights at Inverness using radar data supplied by RAF Lossiemouth and RAF Kinloss.

Last month HIAL awarded a seven figure contract for the development of the airport’s own radar head which will become operational in autumn 2008 and see the airport completely self sufficient in local radar provision.

Since 1999, local radar services have been provided by controllers at RAF Lossiemouth via an agreement between National Air Traffic Services and the MoD. The HIAL service now operating will continue to use data feeds from the RAF radars until the airport’s own radar is operational.

James Walton, Inverness Airport manager said: “Having our own radar controllers handling aircraft movements is a major step forward for us and reflects the increases in traffic at the airport since 1999.

“The RAF controllers have provided us with an excellent service over the years and we thank them for their work with us since 1999. The RAF’s ongoing support in providing radar data is also very important to us until our own radar is installed next year.

“The radar project team at HIAL has done an excellent job in getting us to this point and we have also worked closely with the industry regulator to bring the service into use.”

Last year HIAL signed a contract with Marshall Aviation Services to develop the radar project and continues to work closely with the UK Civil Aviation Authority’s Safety Regulation Group on the roll out of the scheme. The contract to provide the airport’s own radar head was awarded to Thales ATM Ltd in June.

Over the past year the project has involved feeding data from the RAF radar heads into a new radar control room which has been installed at Inverness air traffic control tower. The six figure capital cost of this phase included a £50,000 grant from the regional transport partnership Hitrans. The project has also involved HIAL recruiting radar controllers and training its own staff at Inverness to radar standard.

Mr Walton said: “Our provision of local radar will enhance the service provided to airlines at the airport and allow new approach procedures to be designed which should reduce noise and cut down on fuel burn by aircraft as they land at Inverness. It will also reduce delays to inbound aircraft and increase the number of aircraft movements the airport can handle in an hour. The project will also facilitate the development of controlled airspace at the airport.”

Passenger numbers at Inverness have increased by 100% since 2000 as a result of the introduction of new air routes and aircraft movements have risen by 60% over the same period. Inverness handled 41% of the total 93,000 aircraft movements at HIAL’s 10 airports last year. The airport will handle more than 700,000 passengers this year.