Our Airbus A340 had to be thoroughly de-iced before departure from Munich. Freezing rain was coating everything with a lethal sheet of ice and as I watched the vehicles moving around our aircraft as it almost disappeared in the steam rising from the wings and fuselage, I wondered whether the cherry-picker operators knew, or even cared, about the destination of this aircraft. After all, it was just one of the many departures from Munich that cold winter night.
It was different for me. BluSky Services had created the first Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) course for EUROCONTROL several years ago, followed by an updated version made for IATA a few years later. Our instructors had delivered this course all over the world and most A-CDM courses you find out there still have the structure and certain elements of our original work. However, this was the first time we would deliver such a course in Dubai.
The German company airsight was the contracting agent and I was traveling as director, implementation support for TotalCDM, a partner company focused on collaborative decision making in all its forms.
The course material had been updated and slightly restructured for the occasion, mainly to take account of the particular circumstances of the United Arab Emirates. Traffic demand is growing explosively in the region and flow management is practiced in a way reminiscent of Europe before the central flow management unit was established. Obviously, collaborative decision making both on the local airport level and even more on the network level is a particular challenge where air traffic control units and airports lack central coordination.
There were fifteen participants, representing Dubai Airports and Dubai Air Navigation Services with both engineering and operational folks among them. Although no airline or handling agent was represented, we tried to ensure that their particular viewpoints were adequately covered and discussed.
Although the course does include details of the technical enablers for A-CDM, we always stress the fact the collaborative decision making is first and foremost a new way of working, a new approach to decision making, a culture change that is often more difficult to achieve than deploying the technology sometimes required by A-CDM.
The participants did note with satisfaction that some of the working arrangements CDM would involve are already in place, even though they are not as effective as they could be with true collaboration. We were also able to identify what kind of operational improvements would be needed to ensure better decision making between the units serving the en-route and terminal airspace in the area.
Most of the last day of the course was dedicated to a group exercise where participants had to develop a sample A-CDM implementation plan for an airport with defined characteristics. These latter were put together to make A-CDM of particular importance.
All three groups came up with a slightly different version of an implementation plan but they all delivered a product that showed that the aim of the course had been reached. The theory and practice of A-CDM was clearly understood.
Dubai is a city that combines the ultra-modern and the traditional in a delightfully balanced way, resulting in an environment that is easy to like and enjoy. It can get very hot in the summer but during the cooler months the temperature is pleasant and there is sun in abundance. Visit if you can, it is well worth it! Who knows, by the time you arrive, A-CDM will be there to help your flight along.
