The concept of placing the controller at the airport in a high building looking out of the windows to get an overview of the area of responsibility has remained unchanged since ATC was introduced after the second world war. This involves a number of limitations to the concept of operations. Some of these are:

• low utilisation of personnel resources;
• need for redundant resources at each ATC unit;
• adding new aids and sensors often implies stand-alone equipment;
• stand-alone adds to the head-down time removing focus from the primary field of view.

A cost benefit analysis performed by the LFV Group in Sweden regarding a paradigm transition to perform ATC services from remotely operated towers focusing rural small and medium density airports, shows economical benefits by more efficient staff enrolment, compared to traditional ATC operations from local towers at each airports. These benefits for the ANSP will in turn reduce the cost for the airline operators and travellers, and can contribute to ore flexible opening hours.