I guess from a purely political point of view, criticizing the Functional Airspace Block (FAB) concept is probably not correct. I will not criticize the FABs. What I will do is share a few thoughts with you and also raise a few questions. Who knows, someone may even have the answers.
So what is a FAB? Contrary to what you may have heard, the FAB concept was/is an effort by the European Union to bring some order into the fragmented European ATM scene. That this was not exactly to everyone’s taste was amply evidenced in the time it took to get the first FAB (and subsequent FABs) off the ground. The process stalled a few times and lots of screaming brides had to be dragged to the altar before it was restarted again.
FABs do not represent, per se, a paradigm change in air traffic management. Just read the various FAB concepts of operation and search for truly new things… Not much in there I am afraid. What FABs will hopefully do is eliminate the most obviously undesirable features of the old system, forcing service providers to work closer together and cut out inefficiencies. This does not mean fewer centers or rationalization of the surveillance infrastructure… But improvements there will be no doubt about it.
FABs will also replace fragmentation in the form of many small fragments with fragmentation by a few big fragments. The working together of the small fragments was not exactly a stellar performance. How will the big fragments, each aligned with a few powerful players inside them, perform between them?
The signs are not always promising.
Behind the veil of the new buzzword network management, some FABs are busy creating their own little flow management arrangements, relegating the CFMU to a
network management role (no point pretending, this is not an advancement for the CFMU). This is a throwback to how flow control started, and failed, originally.
I have also noticed that the term “regional (as in European regional) implementation” is slowly being replaced by “FAB level implementation”. This is perhaps the most worrisome development of all. Even the biggest FAB is tiny compared to the meaning of “regional”. If history is anything to go by, FABs will all have their ideas about what to implement and when and even how… We had examples like 8.33 kHz or Mode S, where the fight was on for uniformity on the regional level… Will the FABs mean that FAB level uniformity will be considered a success with no need to fight for regional uniformity?
Of course the EU implementing rules will force some aspects towards EU level uniformity and hopefully, SESAR will also be applicable across FAB boundaries.
What seems to be missing is a general understanding and acceptance that the FAB concept is just a tool to eliminate the most obvious shortcomings and not a magic bullet of future air traffic management. I would even venture to say that the SESAR Concept of Operations is simply not compatible with the FAB idea. The shared information, service oriented concept of SESAR eliminates by definition all fragmentation, small or big. Hopefully nobody will try to implement SESAR on a FAB basis…
The SESAR European Air Traffic Management Enterprise Architecture will need to supersede the FABs as otherwise it will get fragmented even before it is borne. FABs need to do their clean-up job as fast as possible and then give way to the real, long term ATM improvements proposed by SESAR.
In the meantime, it is essential to ensure that the individual FABs do not become sub-regional kitchens with their own recipes and solutions. FABs must do their job but they must be driven by the European regional needs and not the other way round.