100 Air Traffic Control Towers

credit: © Mohd Hafiez Mohd Razali | Dreamstime.com z Tower West at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia

If they are not thinking of a marshaller, the first thing most people associate with air traffic control is the airport tower. Given that it is so iconic and widely associated with our profession, it was an obvious choice to include in our centenary celebrations.

We asked IFATCA Member Associations to send in their favourites and they did. So from the older to the brand new, the towering to the tidy, each tower in the project was nominated by their MA, and is loved by ATCOs. However, by far the most impressive submission we got was the hand-painted tower of Singapore’s Changi Airport, by Dang Chun Kin, from our local association ATCA-S - see below.

According to the Guinness World Records, the tallest airport control tower is still Tower West at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia. It is 133.8 m (438 ft 11.71 in) tall and was completed in April 2013. It appears that the tower at Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International airport in Saudi Arabia is taller at 136m /446ft, but this measurement has yet to be validated by the people at Guinness.

But even that is not quite the end of the story: the Vancouver Harbour Air Control Tower, which serves Vancouver Harbour Water Airport (CYHC), sits on top of a 142 m (466 ft) tall skyscraper, the Granville Square in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Built in 1973, it remains the highest air traffic control tower in the world, where it controls an airport with one of the world's highest levels of seaplane activity.

z The Vancouver

Harbour Air

Control Tower, on top of the

Granville Square skyscraper