The Western air-transport industry realised around 1989 that the most enormous commercial opportunity in the entire transition to the Future Air Navigation System (FANS) was opening up before its very eyes: Russia needed a new navigation infrastructure. Since then it has deluged Moscow with advice - some of it wrong, most of it self-serving, much of it contradictory. The result is that, far from clearing Russia's skies for Western airlines, the industry has helped to create an almost impenetrable fog of confusion.
There is nothing wrong with providing self-serving advice as long as it is the widest possible spread of interest which is ultimately served. Some things, however, are done only once in a lifetime, and have to be done correctly or not at all: this awesome project is one of them.
The transition to the FANS in the Pacific region is proving, above all, that a clear statement of needs from the airlines is crucial. Those carriers know what they want, and have given the air-traffic service-providers the confidence to press ahead with the breath-taking move away from ground-based aids and procedural control.
The story in Russia is a less happy one and, paradoxically, it is the airlines which are substantially to blame. It would be absurd to criticise the suppliers thrusting their wares on the Russians. Some of their products are, frankly, unsuitable for a country driving towards a FANS infrastructure, but that is the nature of capitalism. What is vital is that the user-community provides the service-provider with sound advice, and that is precisely what has not happened.
Instead, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has got itself into a dreadful mess over the whole issue. It has committed two basic sins: it has allowed itself to be hijacked by a powerful minority interest in its membership; and it has strayed way outside its area of expertise.
Russia's air-traffic management (ATM) authority, Rosaeronavigatsia, was faced with a fundamental choice over FANS: it could accept the European-funded, American-supported proposal to issue a single, over-arching tender for the modernisation of its system, or it could address the task piecemeal in a series of contracts with individual suppliers.
IATA, as the representative of most of the West's airlines, seemed the logical source of advice on this choice. Alas (as some of its officials now admit) IATA does not have the expertise to judge this issue. Unfortunately, at the urging of one of its most powerful members with interests in Russia - United Airlines - it has already publicly backed the second alternative in the face of bitter opposition from other airlines. Worse still, because United actively supports a proposal from a particular supplier - ARINC - IATA is now identified with that specific solution.
Belatedly, some within IATA are admitting that the organisation has got it wrong. There is nothing to say that there is anything wrong technically with the ARINC solution: it is merely that the solution addresses just one part of the total Russian problem and - crucially - there is no agreed method of funding it. In contrast, the European solution encompasses the whole of Russia, has the backing of the USA, and a guarantee of funding from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. The fear is that Russia will now follow other CIS states down the road of adopting a series of isolated, uncoordinated, primarily vendor-driven ATM systems.
Having painted itself into this particular corner, IATA is short on options, but two things should be done. The first is that, so far as is practicable, IATA should go no further in pro-actively supporting any particular vendor's proposal, but should throw all its efforts into ensuring that the best solution for the majority of its members is chosen. Perhaps more importantly, though, IATA needs to think hard about its role in contributing to technical debates. If it does not have the necessary expertise itself, it should do what its members do - buy it or hire it.
Source: Flight International
