Finally. Austria.
Your ticket to high quality ATC
What's it all about?During the "Finally. Austria" - Event, which will take place on Nov. 20th - 21st all major Austrian airports will be staffed. For VFR traffic Wien Information is expected too! The outstanding thing is, that ALL Controllers who participate in this event will be working together in a single room like in a real Area Control Center Facility. This means that controllers will talk to each other and are able to forward the flight strips of each aircraft to the next appropriate controller.
The big advantage for all pilots is, that if you have special requests, they can be checked and executed faster than ever as coordination will be much simpler.
As in Real Life you will hear other controllers communicating in the background!
"As real as it gets" is once again "Reality"!
The ACC (Area Control Center)?All controllers will physically control together in the training facility of Microsoft Austria located in Vienna. Microsoft Austria has an excellent training room with state of the art PCs, a fast broadband internet connection through Telekom Austria and a beamer providing the controllers with a constant real-time situational overview of the traffic situation within the FIR WIEN. The event is "powered by MICROSOFT AUSTRIA". Many thanks to Microsoft Austria for this opportunity in advance! You'll find "hot photos" of all your controllers in the VACC-SAG forum as soon as the event gets under way.
Slots?For the event we recommend you to book a slot for flights departing from Vienna, LOWW and Innsbruck, LOWI to avoid delays. Only if you have got a slot we can offer you higher priority compared to non-slot flights. Another advantage is, that slot-flights will get their clearence immediatly after the initial contact while non-slot flights may have to wait shortly. For the controllers it is also more convenient to know how many aircrafts they can expect.
Thus: booking of a slot is not mandatory but highly recommended!
Times of Operation and Service?The event will start on
Saturday 20th Nov. at 1200Z and will end at about 2300Z depending on traffic volume. We will have to close LATEST at 0000Z.
On
Sunday 21st Nov. we will restart operations at 1000Z and close in the evening at around 22-00Z . Exact times will still be published and are dependant on controller availability.
NOTAMs and Flight Planning?You can find all information concerning the event on the procedures-page as well as a list of all "No Go's" concerning the event. If you're looking for flight plans to/from Vienna and Innsbruck just have a look on the SAG Flight plans page.
We wish you a pleasant flight, a lot of traffic, and many safe landings "Finally in Austria"!
Daniel Gruber
FIR Wien Events Coordinator