RAINER UPHOFF / MADRID
The UK's National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and Spanish air traffic control (ATC) provider AENA have signed an agreement that puts NATS on track to adopt AENA's SACTA automated ATC system.
Richard Everitt, director general of NATS and Jose Eladio Seco, president of AENA, signed the deal at the UK House of Lords.
"The contract is to study how our SACTA system can be adopted to NATS's needs and is valued at €3.4 million [$4.1 million],"says AENA. "Once this study has been performed, it is envisaged that NATS will take a final decision to install the current Version 3 of SACTA at its Prestwick, Scotland control centre in 2005. "This centre will be very similar to AENA's new Barcelona control centre in Gava which will be inaugurated soon," it adds.
NATS and AENA will create a joint task force to develop Version 4 of SACTA, which will be implemented at all control centres in the UK, including Swanwick for the London area. The total value of the contract is expected to be around €100 million.
"This is a landmark agreement, as for the first time two major ATC service providers will be using the same system, which is an important step towards seamless interoperability within the European common skies project," says AENA.
AENA and NATS jointly control about 45% of European flight operations. SACTA was developed by AENA's technical partner Indra and provides the controller with information on flight plans, communications and meteorology. It is operative in all Spanish air traffic control centres.
Source: Flight International
