Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 11:29:57 ET

YKZ Tower to open 1 hour later

This news is a little late. However, AIC 21/08 fills us in:

TORONTO/BUTTONVILLE, ONTARIO REDUCTION IN THE CONTROL TOWER HOURS OF OPERATIONS

NAV CANADA, the country's provider of civil air navigation services, recently conducted an aeronautical study that reviewed the hours of operation of the control tower at the Toronto/Buttonville airport.

Taking into consideration the complexity, level, and nature of operations, NAV CANADA concluded that reducing the hours of the control tower by one hour would not adversely affect the safety or efficiency of flight operations.

Currently the hours of operation for the control tower at the Toronto/Buttonville Airport are 0600h to 2300h local time. As a result of this study, the hours of operation will be amended to 0700h to 2300h local time.

This change will take effect 5 June 2008 at 09:01 Coordinated Universal Time. The appropriate aeronautical publications will be amended. For further information, please contact:

Marcel Pinon Manager, Level of Service & Aeronautical Studies – East NAV CANADA 77 Metcalfe Street Ottawa, ON K1P 5L6

Those tower guys deserve an extra hour of sleep ;)

Comments (3) | Permalink | Category: Interesting Things

Not surprising, really - my morning commute takes me past YKZ daily between 6:30 and 7:00 am local time, and I rarely spot traffic on the runways, taxiways, in the circuit, or heading up toward the practice area. I doubt this will make a huge difference.

Posted by: Rolf Dawson on Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 11:45:59

Rolph,

I agree. This is especially true in the winter months when it doesn't get light until well past 8am.

I'm sure the corporate users (FlightExec, etc..) of the airport rarely leave that early as well.

Medevacs? Sure. But there is still someone manning the radios 24/7 there as the control zone is now a class E after hours.

Posted by: Blake on Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 11:49:31

Yes, the airport is not very busy with IFR traffic before 7. The reason it was initially open at 6, was because Georgian used to base all their 208 traffic in kz, but in recent years they have moved it all back to yz.

However, even one IFR can be a fair amount of work now when the tower closes with relaying clearances through London FSS on 123.15

What I really don't understand is why oo tower is open at 6?

Posted by: Joe on Monday, June 23, 2008 - 17:54:18