On 6 November, the FAA announced that America’s first digital air traffic control towers are up and running. They are at Bartow Executive Airport in Florida and Kenai Municipal Airport in Alaska. Five more airports with no tower today will follow: Winter Haven and Venice in Florida, Montgomery County Airpark in Maryland, Johnston Regional in North Carolina, and Durango in Colorado.
The idea is simple. High definition cameras and sensors on a mast give controllers a continuous 360 degree view of the runway, taxiways and surrounding airspace. Controllers see it on screens rather than through tower windows. “Digital towers provide controllers with greater visibility of airport activity,” said FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford.
The milestone came after the FAA granted its first system design approval to the Frequentis smartVISION system on 2 September. That approval covers single runway airports in Class D airspace, which means small, relatively quiet fields.
For European readers, the news may feel familiar. Europe has been doing this for over a decade.
Europe Got There First
Sweden opened what it billed as the world’s first remote tower at Örnsköldsvik in April 2015, controlled from Sundsvall, about 78 miles away. Norway went further. Avinor’s centre in Bodø was designed to control 15 airports from a single building.
The UK produced the most striking example. London City started handling flights from a digital tower in January 2021, and by the end of April it was fully controlled remotely. Controllers sit at the NATS centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, about 115km from the runway. Sixteen high definition cameras and sensors on a 50m mast feed a panoramic display, with call signs, altitude and speed overlaid on the live picture.
“Since going operational at the end of January 2021, the technology has worked really well,” said Alison FitzGerald, London City’s chief operating officer at the time.
London City proved that a busy commercial airport in the middle of a capital city could run safely without anyone in a tower on site. America is starting several steps further back.
America’s False Starts
The US did try earlier. Leesburg Executive Airport in Virginia began camera based remote tower services in 2018, and the FAA found the system operationally viable in 2021. The programme was discontinued in June 2023 after Saab withdrew from the design approval process, and controllers moved into a temporary mobile tower. A trial at Northern Colorado Regional Airport ended later the same year after the vendor stopped work.
Between 2020 and 2024, the FAA produced a string of draft concepts, safety assessments and technical requirements but approved no systems. It took the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 to force a defined approval process and timeline. Even now, the FAA says a design approval typically takes 24 to 36 months.
A Different Problem to Solve
The gap between Europe and America is not only about speed. The two are using the same technology for different jobs.
In Europe, remote towers mostly replace existing towers or bring several of them together in one centre. In America, the first job is to give towers to airports that do not have one. Only about 600 of more than 5,000 US airports have an air traffic control tower, and building a conventional one is beyond the budget of most small airports.
Bartow shows the economics. Its old tower opened in 1943 and is a six storey structure, where controllers climb outdoor stairs because an elevator was too costly to add. The digital replacement cost $6.1m, paid for entirely by the Florida Department of Transportation. Controllers now work in a ground level building about 600 feet from a 76 foot camera mast, watching 15 screens arranged in a 130 degree arc. “Realistically, it’s probably the only way it could have been done,” said Blake Swafford of Hanson Professional Services, which designed and built the project.
Funding is starting to follow. Congress allocated $50m for digital towers at qualifying airports without towers. The FAA confirmed in September that digital towers can be paid for through its Airport Improvement Program for new contract tower candidates. Its contract tower grant scheme for 2027 offered up to $100m, with approved digital towers eligible. The FAA has also asked suppliers for proposals covering potentially 50 systems over five years.
The Lesson From Scotland
Europe’s experience carries a warning as well as a model, and the clearest one comes from Scotland.
Highlands and Islands Airports planned to centralise air traffic control in Inverness, with remote towers serving Sumburgh, Kirkwall, Stornoway and Dundee. Controllers went on strike over the plan, closing six HIAL airports for 24 hours. In January 2022, HIAL scrapped the centralisation, and tower services stayed local. Local MSP Edward Mountain put the cost of the shelved project at about £9m, including £2.6m for a building in Inverness.
The technology was never the main problem. The Prospect union argued that moving controllers to Inverness would cost jobs and take income out of remote communities. Those arguments won.
America’s approach sidesteps that fight. When a digital tower goes to an airport with no tower, nobody loses a local job. Service is added rather than relocated. Bartow is even training its own controllers through a 12 month programme with a local college, building the workforce it needs on site.
Where the Real Savings Are
The biggest efficiency gains in Europe come from one centre controlling several airports. That is the model Norway built in Bodø and the one Scotland tried and failed to introduce.
America has quietly taken its first step in that direction. Bartow’s control centre is also set to manage Winter Haven Regional Airport, seven nautical miles away. If that works, it creates a template for regional centres covering clusters of small airports. That matters in a country where the FAA has struggled for years to recruit enough controllers.
There are limits. The current approval covers single runway, Class D airports only, so busy commercial airports remain years away. Frequentis is also the only approved supplier, and prices tend to fall faster when suppliers compete.
The Bottom Line
America is arriving late, but its route may prove wiser than it looks. It is starting with airports that have no tower, proving the technology where nobody’s job is at stake, and training controllers alongside the rollout.
The next tests are whether the FAA widens its approval beyond single runway fields, and whether the Bartow and Winter Haven pairing becomes a model for controlling several airports from one room. London City showed the technology can handle a busy airport. Scotland showed the hard part is persuading the people who would have to move.
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