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I am simulating the capacity of the Netherlands airspace by using the sector capacity. But I am wondering for different height, the capacity works for both or a single level.

Therefore, I want to know if the controller control lower and the controller control upper area are from same system or not. The question can be paraphrase as, would there be a controller control both flights for two areas simultaneously?

And if possible, are there any documents explain it?

The map below comes from AIS-Netherlands.

AMS FIR

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  • $\begingroup$ Welcome to aviation.stackexchange.com! $\endgroup$
    – DeltaLima ♦
    Oct 8, 2018 at 18:21

1 Answer 1

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Note that the Netherlands is a bit of a special case.

Below FL245, Air Traffic Control is provided by Luchtverkeersleiding Nederland (LNVL, the Dutch Air Traffic Control) and Dutch Mil (Dutch military ATC). Until one year ago, the Dutch military operated from their dedicated air traffic control centre in Nieuw Milligen. Since January 2018, they are colocated with LVNL at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and largely use the same systems as LVNL.

On the lower area map (below FL195), all sectors marked as Amsterdam Radar are controlled by LVNL. The sectors marked as Dutch Mil are controlled by the military, and despite some of the sectors are still named NW Milligen, they are controlled from the same room as Amsterdam Radar at Schiphol. As you can see on the upper area map, all sectors are marked Amsterdam Radar.

Their systems are partly combined, but military sectors and civil sectors are never combined. So if a lower sector is controlled by Dutch Mil, the upper sector will be controlled by a different controller.

When both the lower and the upper sector are controlled by LVNL, they can be combined during hours of low traffic. In that case there may be a single controlled controlling flights in the lower airspace and in the upper airspace. Combination is possibly also with adjacent sectors.

But wait, that's not all. Note that the map mentions that the Upper Area is between FL195 and FL245. The upper airspace mentioned so far in this answer, has a ceiling of merely 24500 feet.

enter image description here

Above FL245, ATC is provided by EUROCONTROL's Maastricht Upper Area Control (MUAC). They are located in Maastricht, far away from Amsterdam. They use the same radars, but their control system is totally different. Sectors of Amsterdam and Maastricht can thus not be combined.

Within MUAC's airspace, there is horizontal and vertical sector splitting. Especially the Delta sector is a busy one, with lots of transit traffic to/from UK/Atlantic and with climbing/descending traffic from/to London, Frankfurt, Cologne/Bonn, Brussels, Amsterdam and many more airports.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you so much for your clear answer! It really helps a lot! $\endgroup$
    – Cr LI
    Oct 11, 2018 at 12:38
  • $\begingroup$ Is the Netherlands a special case because just about all of it is a shaded area? Or am I confusing things? $\endgroup$
    – Mast
    Jun 4, 2019 at 16:59
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    $\begingroup$ @Mast that too, and with the rising sea level the shaded area may only get bigger :-) It's a special case because there are two air traffic control agencies dealing with en-route civil aviation, each with their own ATC system. The split at FL245 between LVNL and EUROCONTROL is rare. (Belgium, Luxembourg and part of Germany have the same split because of the EUROCONTROL Maastricht centre) $\endgroup$
    – DeltaLima ♦
    Jun 4, 2019 at 21:30

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