EUROCONTROL will forgive me for quoting here from the latest issue of Skyway magazine, which focuses on airspace users. Here is what they have to say in the introduction:
With the onset of the Single European Sky performance scheme, collaborative decision making, the business and mission trajectories as defined by the SESAR program and a host of other initiatives which will involve all aviation stakeholders, we are on the edge of a new era of much closer collaboration between the operational departments of air navigation service providers, airports and aircraft operators.
“This will go much further than sharing a common set of data. It will mean that we really start to understand each other’s businesses and this will take ATM organizations such as EUROCONTROL into relatively unchartered territory”, said Bo Redeborn, Principal Director ATM.
This is of course very promising. Especially if we consider the following wise words, also from EUROCONTROL:
Best use of airspace can only be achieved if the traditional Air Traffic Control (ATC) concept is replaced, in a controlled way, by a new ATM concept.
A System Approach, recognizing the interdependence of stakeholders’ operational decisions, with a consistent management of all phases of flight, the application of uniform principles, the integration of airport airside operations into ATM and system-wide information sharing.
Organizational means to manage the complexity of the traffic situation and to manage the ATM network as an integrated whole via seamless services.
The path for change includes the desire to support the mission and/or business requirement of the airspace users to sustain their activity and optimize the integrity and yield of their operations.
There is only one little problem with all this. The second set of quotations is from the Executive Summary of the 2003 edition of the ATM2000+ Strategy…
So, if in 2003 they were talking about the “interdependence of stakeholders’ operational decisions” and the “integration of airport airside operations into ATM”, how come ten years later we are still only on “the edge of a new era of much closer cooperation”? What the hell have they been doing for ten years?
Of course we know full well what. Precious little. Had States and ANSPs been realizing what they had signed up for in the ATM2000+ Strategy, we would not have FABs and SESAR to-day but instead we would have a functional, cost effective air traffic management system that would be the best in the world.
So while we all smile happily on the edge of the new era, may be, just may be, we should ask the question: will it be different this time?
Judging from the signs, I doubt it.
Dear Steve,
I have had a long involvement with European ATM, first when I worked for British Airways, then as IATA’s European Director for Operations and Infrastructure, and finally as the Chairman of Eurocontrol’s Performance Review Commission (PRC). I have also worked, with many others, on EATCHIP, the ECAC Institutional Strategy, the ATM2000+ Strategy and the new Concept of Operations for SESAR.
At each new initiative we hoped that eventually a truly European ATM system would evolve. At the ECAC Transport Ministers Meeting (MATSE/5) in 1997, it seemed that these hopes might at last be realised – there was ministerial buy-in to a new Institutional Structure and to a logical strategy (ATM2000+) which, had it been implemented in full, really could have transformed European ATM. And then, even more effective, the EC brought legislative clout through the SES.
In 2002 the PRC completed the second of two benchmarking studies which showed, on a continental scale, that ATM in the USA was twice as efficient as in Europe. I consider that this was one of the most important pieces of work we did in the PRC as it proved beyond any shadow of doubt that there were huge gains to be made if European ATM really could be made to work as a cohesive network across the whole continent.
And where are we now? Still trying to do it all again in SESAR….after delay after delay after delay. The technical and institutional work has been done many times over but the states and the ANSPs still do not work together in an optimal way. Despite the many small steps that have been achieved over the years I truly despair that the necessary integration will ever take place. I sincerely hope I am wrong!
Aren’t we seeing the same failure of leadership and competence in the Eurozone crisis as the longer running train wreck that is European ATM? The belief in a centrally directed economic solution is surely just as doomed as the grandiose plans to impose an ATM solution. My hunch (sorry about the boring repetition) is that if any progress is ever made it will be the result of individual decisions with a common technology from the supply industry, that crucially fairly quickly benefit the adopter who is footing most of the bill. As each centrally planned initiative fails, the message goes out that we need more centralisation not less, just as each extreme political party believes its electoral failure is due to not being extreme enough (whether to left or right). Wrong. I agree centralised flow management seems to be a counter example, but that only worked because each of the participants could see the effects of not looking beyond their boundaries, the costs were small and compatability issues were limited (i.e. you didn’t need to change the aircraft).