Large airports are mazes of modern times. Flying a good approach and land smoothly are good things, but the pilot’s job is not over before reaching the parking position (paperwork excluded). Understanding and executing a taxi clearance like “Vacate via H3, clear to taxi to GAC sector 1 via taxiways H, B, J and Y, hold short of ruwnay 28 at J” requires a good preparation, even before landing.

Even the example above – typical in Zurich – may sound complex, it’s rather simple compared to what pilots fliyng in larger airports have to deal with. The picture below shows a small section of Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, around the south terminal.

The red arrows indicate path for arriving aircraft, and the blue ones are for departing aircraft… and this is only valid when flights are operated eastwards. There is another diagram for westwards operations…

Many studies identified runway incursions as one of the bigger safety challenges the aviation industry will have to face-up with in the next years. Airports get more and more traffic, and the reaction time in case an aircraft taxies inadvertently on a runway get shorter.

On ATC side, Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control Systems (A-SMGCS) are developped to detect possible incursions, and contribute to a better control of the lighting systems used to guide the aircrafts. These systems are based on ground radar, and multilateration of ADS-B signals.

There are also cockpit-side products to help pilots to maintain their orientation and situational awareness while taxiiing. Many multi function displays (MFD) can show an airport map, and even show the airplane position on it. The picture below shows the Garmin GMX200 displaying an airport diagram.

The most advanced versions of these equipments can issue aural warning when the plane gets close to a runway. Some also issue warnings when the speed exceeds a certain value… if the plane is not on a runway. This should help to prevent take-offs from parallel taxiways… yes, this sometimes happens…

A touch of fun (really ?) before closing this post. JKF is certainly one of the busiest and complex airports in the world, and sometime ground control gets… well… cahotic. This YouTube sequence is an audio recording of the ground control frequency, on a less than optimal day.