The government-run Airports Authority of India (AAI) has started trials to explore the feasibility of using remote digital towers for airspace management, Arun Bansal, chief executive officer (CEO) of Adani Airport Holdings Limited (AAHL), said on Friday.

India's airports will not have physical air traffic control (ATC) towers within the next 20 years, he mentioned while speaking at Capa India Aviation Summit 2024.

An ATC tower at an airport is a facility that coordinates and manages the safe takeoff, landing, and ground movement of aircraft. In India, all ATC towers -- except those controlled by the defence forces -- are handled by the AAI.

In 2021, London City Airport became the first major international airport in the world to be fully controlled by a remote digital tower, which is about 115 km away from the runway.

Bansal said: "The AAI is a very important stakeholder for us. We share our roadmap with them. I think the AAI is also realising that with the evolution industry in India and globally, there are new technologies needed."

" Europe is getting away from ATC towers now. They are moving to digital. I have been talking to the AAI, they are doing trials with the digital tower now...I foresee that in 20 years, there won't be any ATC towers. Everything would be digital and remote. That will also free a lot of land at the airport," he added.

Various airports in Sweden and Poland are currently working towards establishing remote digital towers. The European Union has also issued regulations to standardise and enable the deployment of digital towers. However, physical towers are not being entirely phased out yet, as many airports are expected to adopt a hybrid model that integrates new remote technology with existing tower infrastructure.

AAHL, an Adani Group company, currently manages seven functional airports in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram. It is also building the Navi Mumbai airport which is expected to start operations by mid-2025.