It is definitive now, FABs are the greatest invention since sliced bread! I mean, what other construct would give European Air Navigation Service Providers the chance to boast about doing things now that they should have done decades ago but failed to because of parochial thinking? It is hard to understand why they were so opposed to the FAB idea when it was first put out by the European Commission… But no problem, FAB has become the new buzz word and the opiate of people with short memories.
Not so long ago, the folks at FAB Europe Central proudly announced that aircraft in their FAB will now fly shorter routes at night as a result of the new and wonderful co-operation between the states concerned. What they forgot to mention was the minor fact that what they did was nothing more than formalizing something air traffic controllers have been doing for decades: giving directs at night. This was not a FAB achievement, just common sense finally prevailing.
But there is more.
Air Traffic Management magazine has just published news of the UK-Ireland Functional Airspace Block Plan for 2011-2014 and the annual report of achievements for 2010, having been released. This FAB is the oldest in Europe in operation since 2008 and by all accounts it is “highly successful”. Well, let’s see…
One of the key elements of the 2011-2014 FAB Plan is ODNET: Optimize Domestic, North Atlantic and European Traffic Flows. Hmm… If I recall correctly, this was also one of the aims of EATCHIP and ATM2000+ though admittedly, not on a UK/Ireland scale. EATCHIP and ATM2000+ were trying to achieve this on a European scale.
We can be further reassured about the future by the words of Ian Hall, NATS’ International Operations Director quoted by Air Traffic Management Magazine as saying: “While the UK-Irish FAB continues to be the only mature FAB in existence, we are pursuing a progressive international agenda to extract greater benefits from FABs and wider alliances across Europe. This includes exploring ways of realizing economies of scale in areas such as airspace design, aeronautical information and procurement.”
Well, I am not sure what Mr. Hall has been doing the past 15 years or so, but there used to be a European alliance called EUROCONTROL and the economies of scale have been discovered and argued for in countless fora in the past. If the UK and Ireland need a FAB to rediscover the wheel, we are heading into dire straights indeed.
It is also interesting to note that communications from the various FABs (of which there are far too many anyway) talk about nothing more than legacy stuff. Outlandish ideas like trajectory based operations or net-centricity are hardly mentioned at all.
Whichever way you look at it, the participants in the various FABs are doing or planning to do on the FAB level what they should have done years ago on the European level, creating an all new level of fragmentation which will be very difficult to get rid of. As a clear warning of what is to come, just remember the words of DSNA’s boss at ATC Global in Amsterdam this year: SESAR was designed for the FAB from the ground up. This is patently untrue. SESAR was designed to be truly European without the need for FAB-type fragmentation. But of course with the ANSPs having finally discovered just how much power they can get over slices of Europe inside a FAB (while slowly killing off EUROCONTROL at the same time), they are of course desperate to prove that SESAR is also built on FABs… Nothing could be farther from the truth. For SESAR, FABs are an impediment not a benefit.
In the meantime, we better brace ourselves for more of the same, bright and proud reports from the FABs telling us the great achievements which represent nothing more than catching up with the obfuscation of the past two decades. Mind you, it is good that the ANSPs are finally doing what they should have done years ago… What is less good is that they still insist on walking down the legacy road instead of leap-frogging to a more modern ATM paradigm.
Of course their answer to that is that the paradigm change will come with SESAR. Yes… unless the fossilized FAB czars will keep it from happening again like they did in the past.
It is interesting to read your comments on the FAB vs. SESAR issue. It seems to me that there is no need to formally institutionalize a FAB in a geographic area where the airspace is controlled by a single ANSP (in this case NATS). It should be possible to function under the concept of variable MTT (minimum time track) structure, which forfeits the need for FAB, as it is even better and could easily encompass the idea of TBO.
Anyone familiar with the North Atlantic Tracks concept can understand that. I think that this is a good example of TBO, when linked with the North American Routes system at the landfall point as these change twice every day following the changing Jet Stream trajectories.
Keeping in mind that the concentration of traffic over Europe is greater than the North Atlantic flow and short flights are numerous, MTT (like TBO) would be, none the less, an appropriate model for lengthy high altitude flights over the European continent, while also taking advantage of the Jet Stream to reduce fuel consumption.
I am now working as an expert with the Drafting Committee of Aviation Law in China, which is in the process of redefining the partition of its airspace, civilian and military.
The formidable increase in civilian air traffic within the very large geographical area of that country is likely to create congestion on the airways (which are now the only usable flight tracks in China) and delays on the ground, thus reducing flight effectiveness and increasing fuel consumption.
One of the ways to help alleviate this problem will be to restructure the use of the airspace with the help of the military, which now manage all of the airspace.
The introduction of TBO or MTT in China would be a very good method of improving the situation. It is the objective that we are aiming for but there is still a lot of discussions and negotiating to do.
Cheers and keep up the good work on the Roger-Wilco blog.
Pierre
Thank you Pierre for your kind words. We will coninue to do our best.