Airbus Acquires Metron Aviation

Airbus has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Metron Aviation, a leading provider of advanced Air Traffic Management (ATM) products and services for the global aviation industry. This acquisition strengthens Airbus’ strategy to accelerate and support ATM programs that will dramatically improve global air transportation capacity, efficiency and environmental sustainability. The transaction is subject… Continue reading Airbus Acquires Metron Aviation

Enhanced Surveillance of Aircraft and Vehicles – 2011 (ESAV '11)

Island of Capri, Italy 12-14 September 2011 Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems and airport systems are rapidly evolving to meet increased efficiency, safety, security, environmental and business demands. A deep evolution with radical changes of the current Air Traffic Management System is going on both in Europe, with the SESAR program, and in the USA… Continue reading Enhanced Surveillance of Aircraft and Vehicles – 2011 (ESAV '11)

Pioneering and progressing: Assessing the progress of SESAR with Florian Guillermet

The SESAR programme was launched on 3 June 2009. Now almost two years since its launch, It’s a good time to take stock of the status of the programme’s 300 projects, assess progress in the execution of the first SESAR release and the first project deliverables. In a short interview, Florian Guillermet, SESAR JU Chief… Continue reading Pioneering and progressing: Assessing the progress of SESAR with Florian Guillermet

The significance of services in TITAN

As you may have heard, TITAN is an EU 7Th Framework project working on improving the predictability and efficiency of the aircraft turnaround. Its name says it all: turnaround integration in trajectory and network. Building on the baseline to be provided by Airport CDM (A-CDM), TITAN will make the details of the turnaround process more… Continue reading The significance of services in TITAN

The misunderstanding of the decade or sloppy terminology?

Buzzwords are powerful things. They can be dropped in speeches and writing almost at random and the casual audience or reader will be suitably impressed. Luckily they seldom bother to ask the author for an explanation of his favorite buzzwords… Our little air traffic management world of to-day has lots of buzzwords but my all… Continue reading The misunderstanding of the decade or sloppy terminology?

Functional Airspace Blocks (FAB) – the EC’s biggest blunder?

That the EC meant well when they originally came up with the idea of Functional Airspace Blocks (FAB) is not in question. That they did not anticipate the monster they were creating can be put down to the engaging naivety of someone venturing into the jungle of European air traffic management for the first time.… Continue reading Functional Airspace Blocks (FAB) – the EC’s biggest blunder?

Aircraft turnaround made visible from a TBO/SOA perspective

Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) are two concepts rather new to air traffic management (ATM) and apparently they continue to cause some head scratching when it comes to agreeing what TBO really means or how to define services in the ATM context. In this article I will attempt to explain a… Continue reading Aircraft turnaround made visible from a TBO/SOA perspective

Federal Airways Manual of Operations 1941 – Chapter C, Airway Traffic Control Section

I do not know about you but I love old books. If nothing else, thinking about the many people and many hands that have owned and touched such an old volume feels like a travel back in time. But reading some of them and comparing the style and content to our contemporary reality is also… Continue reading Federal Airways Manual of Operations 1941 – Chapter C, Airway Traffic Control Section