Part of an upgrade program, the tower, funded by IAA, will upgrade the Air Traffic Management (ATM) system to provide connectivity between Cork and the ATM system in use at the IAA’s air traffic control centers at Shannon and Dublin. The new tower is located across the runway, one kilometer from the old tower on the western side of Cork airfield.
IAA decided to build a new tower as re-equipping in the old tower was not feasible without significant interruption to services and the old building would have required an extensive and costly refurbishment.
After extensive planning, the process of moving operations from one control tower to another consisted of a period of live testing in early / mid October followed by a period of dual operations using both control towers. Gradually, operations were transferred to the new tower with back up services being provided from the old tower. On 00:01 hours on 20 October, 2009, operations were transferred exclusively to the new tower, while back up services were withdrawn at 1300 on 21 October, 2009.
Construction of the tower commenced in August 2007 and took ten months to complete. The fitting out and testing of the upgraded ATM system took until mid October 2009.
