Sesam project to address technology needs of Single Sky
European aerospace suppliers will meet Eurocontrol and the European Commission in Brussels on 13 July to agree the increasingly urgent programme of systems research and technology (R&T) needed to enable air navigation service providers (ANSP) to cope with long-term air traffic growth.
Eurocontrol has meanwhile released figures showing significant growth in European air transport movements during the first half of this year, and the agency's director of air traffic management (ATM) programmes, George Paulson, says this "sends a clear message to the civil industry" about the need for additional system capacity.
Although political approval in 2003 for the Single European Sky (SES) is the "catalyst of change", the SES now has to be made to work, said Eurocontrol head of European systems and conversion Bernard Miaillier at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London last week. Manufacturers' group the Air Traffic Alliance (ATA - see box) is meeting Eurocontrol and the Commission next week, and on the agenda is the R&T needed to create the systems to enable transition from today's legacy ATM systems towards goals set for 2020. The ATA is already engaged on an R&T project, which the Alliance has codenamed Sesam, backed by g57 million ($70 million) European Union funding for a "definition phase" to be completed by the end of 2006.
Paulson says the growth rate of air traffic movements has accelerated dramatically this year. Monthly traffic increases compared with 2003 grew from 0.4% in January to 4.1% in March, 5.4% in April, 6.1% in May and 6.5% in June. Paulson warns this should send "a clear message to the industry" that capacity increases are needed.
European ATM is currently managed by ground-based centres, but the future will see an automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) based system enabling ATM to be network-integrated, with separation responsibility devolved to both air and ground automated systems. Eurocontrol's director of ATM strategies, Bo Redeborn, admits that working with the ATA enables industry to get a clear view of the future and the enabling technologies required, and acknowledges that buy-in to all the projects needed to make the SES work will be essential for stakeholders, including the airlines. But Boeing ATM's manager of advanced ATM systems, Neil Planzer, warns that total consensus from all parties is not achievable.
DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
Source: Flight International
