The area of air traffic control provides an excellent task environment to analyse the influence of automation systems. This is not only because EUROCONTROL estimated a lack of 700 qualified air traffic controllers but also because the task has high workload demands and is restricted to defined procedures. An increase in automation has influence on the interaction between operator and system. In this paper we focus on the influence of increased automation on the eye movement in the task environment of an air traffic controller for ground movement management. An existing surface management system was extended to simulate the stages of support or automation in combination with a notification option. Ten air traffic control officers participated in the validation and tested the feasibility of the overall approach. Their eye movement was captured and analysed for different patterns during four conditions. The results show that higher automation leads to an increase in overall monitoring. The paper then discusses this implication on the task itself and the future design of automation systems.