Australia: a hypothetical future state
1,354 airports assessed. 142 have no tower and meet a tier 1 to 3 rule (23 / 72 / 47). 32 towered airports fit tiers 1 to 3. A hypothetical set of 22 centres covers them. 1 public traffic source loaded.
Orange, teal, pink and grey dots are suggested tiers. Hollow rings are towered airports that fit a tier. White-ringed orange dots are hypothetical centres. Green outlined dots are remote or digital towers already listed on this site. Basemap: OpenStreetMap data via Protomaps.
What it could enable
- Service where there is none. 142 airports have no tower but meet a traffic or infrastructure rule. Remote service could give them separation or advisory service they cannot justify as a conventional tower. About 1.8 million people live within 50 km of one of them and of no towered airport.
- Fewer, shared positions. 32 towered airports fit tiers 1 to 3. Serving some of them from 22 shared centres could change how towers are staffed, equipped and replaced when they age.
- Different working pattern. A centre of about 7.9 airports lets part-time airports share a controller across the day, and lets busy periods at different airports fall on different positions.
- Awareness for isolated fields. 512 isolated airfields could get surface awareness (cameras and surveillance) without any air traffic service.
- Already moving. 2 airports here are listed on this site as remote or digital (operational, trial or planned). See them.
The gap in numbers
| Tier | No tower today | Towered today |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1: Full remote tower service | 23 | 24 |
| Tier 2: Part-time remote tower | 72 | 8 |
| Tier 3: Remote advisory (AFIS-like) | 47 | 0 |
| Tier 4: Surface awareness only | 512 | n/a |
| Large hub, left alone | n/a | 6 |
- Traffic on gap airports
- 10.4 million passengers (54 airports with a figure), 217 thousand movements (54 airports)
- Population
- 27.2 million (World Bank 2024)
- People in cities of 15,000+
- 29.9 million
- Within 50 km of a gap airport
- 11.4 million
- ... and of no towered airport
- 1.8 million
- Near only an isolated airfield
- 15 thousand
- Airports with air-ground service already
- 0 of the gap airports have an AFIS-type frequency listed
Candidate airports
| Airport | Tier | Class | Passengers | Movements | Centre |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canberra Airport YSCB · Canberra | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 3,238,112 | 40,081 | |
| Ballina Byron Gateway Airport YBNA · Ballina | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 533,279 | 4,487 | |
| Karratha Airport YPKA · Karratha | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 467,898 | 5,976 | |
| Proserpine Whitsunday Coast Airport YBPN · Proserpine | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 433,414 | 2,945 | |
| Broome International Airport YBRM · Broome | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 403,800 | 5,083 | |
| Port Hedland International Airport YPPD · Port Hedland | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 396,064 | 4,845 | |
| Newman Airport YNWN · Newman | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 348,641 | 4,245 | |
| Kalgoorlie Boulder Airport YPKG · Broadwood | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 289,736 | 4,034 | |
| Gladstone Airport YGLA · Gladstone | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 247,835 | 4,941 | |
| Mildura Airport YMIA · Mildura | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 241,056 | 6,305 | |
| Mount Isa Airport YBMA · Mount Isa | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 220,345 | 4,982 | |
| Port Macquarie Airport YPMQ · Port Macquarie | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 218,504 | 4,632 | |
| Wagga Wagga Airport YSWG · Forest Hill | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 207,417 | 6,796 | |
| Emerald Airport YEML · Emerald | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 201,523 | 4,814 | |
| Dubbo City Regional Airport YSDU · Dubbo | Tier 1 | No tower, scheduled passenger service | 198,461 | 7,900 |
Hypothetical centres
| Centre site | Airports | Tier 1 / 2 / 3 | Farthest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airservices Digital Aerodrome Service centre, Eastern Creek Existing remote tower centre (trial) | 27 | 11 / 14 / 2 | 492 km |
| Rockhampton Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 14 | 10 / 3 / 1 | 483 km |
| Melbourne Moorabbin Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 18 | 5 / 6 / 7 | 497 km |
| Tindal Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 14 | 2 / 6 / 6 | 463 km |
| RAAF Base Edinburgh Existing staffed tower facility | 9 | 2 / 6 / 1 | 497 km |
| RAAF Base Pearce Existing staffed tower facility | 9 | 3 / 3 / 3 | 473 km |
| Cairns International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 9 | 2 / 4 / 3 | 495 km |
| Tamworth Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 8 | 2 / 5 / 1 | 483 km |
| Learmonth Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 5 | 2 / 3 / 0 | 411 km |
| RAAF Base Curtin Existing staffed tower facility | 3 | 2 / 1 / 0 | 195 km |
| Hobart International Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 2 | 1 / 1 / 0 | 3 km |
| Alice Springs Airport Existing staffed tower facility | 3 | 1 / 2 / 0 | 465 km |
| Winton Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 12 | 1 / 9 / 2 | 487 km |
| Aurukun Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 19 | 0 / 4 / 15 | 486 km |
| Wiluna Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 9 | 2 / 4 / 3 | 479 km |
| Thargomindah Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 4 | 0 / 4 / 0 | 500 km |
| Port Hedland International Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 1 | 1 / 0 / 0 | 0 km |
| Prominent Hill Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 3 | 0 / 2 / 1 | 319 km |
| Esperance Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 1 | 0 / 1 / 0 | 0 km |
| Lord Howe Island Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 1 | 0 / 1 / 0 | 0 km |
| Gove Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 1 | 0 / 1 / 0 | 0 km |
| Burketown Airport New site (no existing facility in range) | 2 | 0 / 0 / 2 | 78 km |
Responsible implementation
A tier on this page is a starting question. These are the topics any real plan would need to answer. Public guidance:
- EASA ED Decision 2023/005/R, guidance material on remote aerodrome air traffic services
- UK CAA: remote aerodrome air traffic services (CAP 670 and approval policy)
- EUROCAE ED-240A, minimum performance standards for remote tower optical systems
- FAA Digital Tower Systems page
- FAA AIP Program Guidance Letter 26-06 (design approval is not operational approval)
- ICAO Doc 4444, PANS-ATM, the procedures that remote services must still meet
Safety case and regulator approval
Each service needs its own safety case and approval before it carries traffic. A design approval for equipment is a different step from permission to run a service. The regulator named in this site's records for Australia: CASA.
Controller workforce and training
Remote work changes the job: new displays, new failure modes, and new competence checks. A plan would cover who moves, who trains, how existing controllers choose, and what happens to current staff and their conditions.
Communications and surveillance
Radio, video and surveillance links must meet the latency and quality the safety case assumes. Tier 1 and 2 airports need reliable cameras, redundant links and a surveillance picture for traffic that radar or ADS-B cannot see from the ground.
Contingency and redundancy
Every centre needs a fallback: a second path for data, a backup position, and a rule for what the airport does when a link fails (hold, divert, revert to advisory). Centres that serve many airports need a plan for losing all of them at once.
Cybersecurity
A centre is a single high-value target. It needs the same protections as other air traffic systems: segmented networks, supply-chain checks, logging, and tested recovery.
Community and labour engagement
Airports, airlines, pilots, unions, local governments and neighbours should be in the process before decisions, not after. Jobs can move away from small airports, and that is a real cost to a community.
Sources
- OurAirports: airports, runways, frequencies.
- GeoNames cities of 15,000 or more; World Bank population.
- BITRE airport traffic data, passengers and aircraft movements for years ended December (open file on data.gov.au; the file ends in 2020, so 2019 is used)
Towers already listed for Australia: remote and digital sites in Australia.