FAB PARTNERSHIPS
Parallel with SESAR Joint Undertaking-driven processes, several other complementary changes are evolving alongside the Single European Sky's implementation. The air navigation service providers of Europe's nine northernmost states are starting to define a formal alliance, as are service providers elsewhere in Europe.
SESAR Joint Undertaking chief programme officer Florian Guillermet says this is evidence that the project is developing a natural momentum. "The process is not just being driven by a regulatory agenda," he points out.
The states involved in the northern European ATM alliance - Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Norway, Sweden and the UK - are setting up an executive management team to prepare the legal and financial ground to enable specific joint ventures. The alliance, possibly to be named Borealis, hopes to achieve greater operational efficiency and lower costs across their common airspace.
One of the group, Norwegian air navigation service provider Avinor, says an initial alliance structure will be established by June 2011. An executive management team will be appointed to develop "candidate joint ventures" and associated formal agreements to "accelerate the benefits of closer harmonisation", says Avinor. This sounds like a process of natural rationalisation.
The chief executives of the nine service providers say: "We have a great opportunity to carry forward our lessons from running the only two FABs [functional airspace blocks] currently recognised under SES and the experience gained by Sweden and Denmark in forming a joint company to manage their operations. We have identified exciting opportunities and practical ways to drive efficiency across our airspace, while drawing our three FABs closer to possible eventual integration."
Three years ago, the then-new Eurocontrol director general David McMillan predicted a network-centric co-operation among air navigation service providers as being the way things were progressing, rather than the original concept of creating pure FABs that take no account of borders.
Recently, Richard Deakin, chief executive of NATS - one of the Borealis partners - suggested that alliances could produce many of the benefits embodied in the FAB concept, but with fewer political and legal difficulties.
Source: Flight International
