A major step was taken towards operational datalinks for air traffic management (ATM) on 14 April when a Lufthansa Boeing 747-200 en route from Frankfurt to Miami accepted clearances from traffic controllers in Maastricht, the Netherlands.
The preliminary Eurocontrol test of the PETAL-II air to ground datalink saw Maastricht controllers providing an operating aircraft with air traffic services via digital datalink, rather than voice messages, for the first time. The flight represents the first in a validation effort which will see aircraft using the datalink in Maastricht airspace for several weeks.
While precise datalink clearance exchanges took place, voice channels were also used and are expected to remain as a back-up. Eurocontrol will use PETAL-II to evaluate operational and human factors concerns.
Source: Flight International
