Before it has finished defining the essential characteristics of the European Single Sky's future air traffic management (ATM) systems the SESAR consortium - the stakeholder group entrusted with the task - has been told its name will live on after it has delivered the ATM master plan. It will become the Single European Sky ATM Research Joint Undertaking: SESAR JU, or SJU for short.
This research will be backed by a €2.1 billion ($2.76 billion) budget, at least €1.4 billion of which will come from institutions like Eurocontrol and the European Commission. When sums that big are promised people, institutions, and companies get greedy.
When the SJU is compared with the Galileo project, several messages go out: there is unlimited cash here, and governments and the funding institutions have purchased an unlimited right to meddle.
The whole thing could develop into the sort of wasteful mess that can occur with complex defence procurement programmes.
The airline industry must keep relentlessly reminding all the parties involved that the SESAR project was going to be different from previous grand ATM schemes: the system was going to be designed for the customers - the airlines, their passengers and cargo shippers. Not for the ATM community, nor the manufacturers.
The funding institutions must not be allowed to lose sight of what an ATM system is for.
Source: Flight International
