Kieran Daly/LONDON
THE INTERNATIONAL Civil Aviation Organisation's (ICAO's) landmark meeting to draw up a new precision-approach strategy has left all nations free to pursue their favoured options.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is stressing the need for consultation with airlines before systems are changed, and for extensive notification periods before any action is taken.
At the ICAO Special Communications/Operations meeting (COM-OPS 95) in Montreal IATA managed to insert a non-binding "recommended practice" into the final strategy, calling for five years warning before the decommissioning of any existing landing systems.
That would mean that European nations wanting to switch from the instrument-landing system (ILS) to the microwave-landing system (MLS) at some airports around the turn of the century should declare the intention almost immediately.
ICAO says that the revised approach strategy incorporates four major points:
the retention of the ILS as an international standard "for the foreseeable future";
the encouragement of "only limited implementation of the MLS...for those locations where it is operationally required and economically beneficial";
the promotion of the development of the multi-mode receiver, or equivalent capability;
the promotion of global-navigation satellite-system (GNSS) research and development.
The decision means that international carriers face the prospect of needing different airborne equipment to serve different airports worldwide.
IATA director of air-navigation systems, David Fisher, says: "This is now an economic decision on the part of each individual carrier. If MLS is installed at London Heathrow to provide Category III, then airlines will have to balance the costs against the consequences of not being able to use it."
The UK Civil Aviation Authority, which has been in the vanguard of the drive to protect the option of using the MLS, says that it "fully supports" the strategy.
CAA National Air Traffic Services chief executive Derek McLauchlan says: "The meeting was an unqualified success in enabling states to continue to meet the requirement for runway precision-approach operations most suited to their specific needs."
He reiterates the view of some European nations that Cat I GNSS operations are "unlikely to be a reality" until "the early years of the next century" and that Cat II/III GNSS issues "...may not be resolved until as late as 2015". That timetable differs by up to 14 years from what the USA believes is possible.
Also at COM-OPS 95, which was attended by some 340 people representing 79 nations and 15 international organisations, it was agreed to support the use of reduced VHF channel-spacing where necessary to protect voice communications, and to back the development of time-division multiple-access voice and data links as long-term solutions.
Source: Flight International
