Since the new T1 Terminal of the Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport was inaugurated in June 2009, the airport has been named the best airport in Southern Europe on four occasions at the World Airport Awards. This new terminal was a new milestone in the development of airport infrastructure in Spain, since it allowed the airport to increase its capacity to 55 million passengers per year and to 90 flights per hour.
The CGA control center in Barcelona is one of the reference centers for its double height architecture and the technology that bring together all the operativity of El Prat as the Airport Services, IT, Security and the area of Engeneering, Maintenance and Operations.
The relationship between AENA and GESAB began more than 10 years ago with the installation in 2009 of the first point to point KVM via extenders in the airport management center. But the search to achieve the excellence in information management and implement the most innovative technological tools of AENA, led them to present a public tender in 2018 with the aim of updating their systems to improve the technology that their operators already had.
Latest technology for a high performance space
After several proposals presented by the participants, it was the DeskWall solution, the latest generation KVM developed by GESAB, which through the IESICA integrator (currently Inetum) was the winner of the project. Therefore, AENA could achieve a substantial improvement in the day-to-day activities of the operators by allowing them to carry out multi-source functions, implement dynamic workstations or develop custom designs to the needs of the managed information by each user.
The DeskWall system had not only met all the requirements, needs and expectations of the CGA in terms of functionallity, but it also allowed them to substantially reduce installed peripherals, since each operator could manage several equipment using a single keyboard and mouse in a unique monitor through the multi-canvas composed by big-sized two monitors, and at the same time meet another objectives of AENA, which was to increase the comfort and ergonomics of all checkpoints.
Once the terms and the needs to be covered were established, the installation of the new management system began. Due to the delicacy and importance of the tasks carried out in the AENA control center, it had to be carried out both by phases and by groups of operators through a highly controlled start-up. Likewise, the GESAB experts had to work causing as little disturbance as possible, this being the case at night, when air traffic is almost non-existent.
Maximum agility and efficiency achieved in the control center
After 3 months of hard hot work, 73 operational positions were left for the development of a 24/7 service executed by a total of more than 290 operators distributed by areas, responsibilities and shifts.
To guarantee the highest levels of security and redundancy, DeskWall workstations were replicated in the old T2 Terminal as a contingency area.
Work efficiency and effectiveness in the response to the signals managed at the Airport Management Center of the Barcelona-El Prat Airport have been greatly increased through the operational agility offered by the KVM dinámico DeskWall.
