Safety regulation concerns put European project at risk
The ambitious Single European Sky (SES) project risks falling at the first fence unless industry can reach a consensus on how to apply effective safety oversight of "functional airspace blocks" (FAB) that will straddle international borders.
European air traffic control organisation Eurocontrol - mandated by the European Commission - is examining the legal, operational and safety issues surrounding the creation of FABs, which it describes as "the building blocks of the SES". However, industry is raising concerns over how consistent safety oversight will be applied to them, especially those which extend into the airspace of several countries.
Eurocontrol's head of airspace, flow management and navigation, Alex Hendriks, acknowledges a problem exists and says all parties involved have to find a solution.
Now that the UK's National Air Traffic Services (NATS) and the Irish Aviation Authority are in the process of working out how to combine their airspace for greater air traffic management (ATM) efficiency (FlightInternational, 30 November-6 December 2004), the issue has arisen as to whether their combined airspace will constitute a genuine FAB and, if it does, who will be responsible for its safety regulation. Speaking at the 1-3 February ATC Maastricht 2005 conference in the Netherlands, Sir Roy McNulty, head of the UK Civil Aviation Authority, raised the issue of centralised regulatory responsibility for safety as SES implementation eliminates national borders in favour of FABs designed purely for ATM efficiency, and separates the regulation from the delivery of air navigation services.
The European Commission has charged Eurocontrol with determining the issues arising from the establishment of FABs and Hendriks was asked if that will make the Commission or Eurocontrol responsible for their safety oversight. He said: "We need to act to sit together and work out the roles of states, air navigation service providers [ANSP], regulators and Eurocontrol." Hendriks says Eurocontrol is not a safety oversight agency, but admits that at present it is the ANSP for the only FAB in Europe - the Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre, which covers the airspace of four nations in northern Europe - because when it was set up the countries involved asked Eurocontrol to take charge of it.
DAVID LEARMOUNT / MAASTRICHT
Source: Flight International
