Continuing our new series of coverage from Airspace World 2026.
In Lisbon, Global Airspace Radar’s Katarzyna Żmudzińska spoke with Seamless Skies Awards winners – Thomas Branner Jespersen from Greenland Airports and the team behind the IFAV3 SESAR project – Increased Flexibility of ATCO Validations.
Resilience and teamwork behind Greenland’s digital airspace
A project by Greenland Airports, Frequentis and Comsa won the Seamless Skies Award in the Remarkable People and Workforce category.
The project began in 2025 at Qaqortoq Airport in southern Greenland — a location with no runway, no tower and no road access. Working in extreme and unpredictable Arctic conditions, a small but dedicated project team succeeded in creating a digital tower capability that supports connectivity and economic development in remote local communities.
The team had to demonstrate exceptional flexibility, adapt quickly to changing conditions and make the most of Greenland’s limited infrastructure and resources. In addition, a strong sense of openness, reliability and mutual trust was essential to keeping the project on track.
Although the project was carefully planned, those plans had to be continuously adjusted in response to changing circumstances. Keeping project managers informed was not always easy while working in such a remote location, where connections to the rest of the world could sometimes be limited. This proved particularly challenging for teams accustomed to a more structured European way of working.
The project was not only a showcase of how to establish a remote tower in a challenging and isolated environment, but also a character-building experience and a true demonstration of teamwork, resilience and collaboration.
Building trust in the new approach to ATC
The IFAV3 SESAR project – Increased Flexibility of ATCO Validations, earned the runner-up place in the Collaborative Operations for Sustainable Skies category. The consortium comprises DLR, ENAIRE, Deep Blue, ENAV, Indra, LFV, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Linköpings universitet (LiU), NLR and NATS. The project explored more flexible deployment of air traffic controllers (ATCOs), with the aim of reducing training overheads and advancing flexible endorsement strategies.
At first, the ATCOs taking part in the simulations were rather sceptical. Working randomly in unfamiliar sectors without any support or pre-assessment did not feel safe. However, gradually the ATCOs began to realise that they were not left alone, but the pre-assessed, selected sectors were comparable to their home sectors. Moreover, IFAV research provided initial tools to help the ATCOs quickly familiarise themselves with new sectors under low traffic conditions. Supported by these measures, the ATCOs started to become more comfortable with the concept.
Digital operational manuals helped to reduce the mental workload involved in remembering procedures for a new sector, while also highlighting sector-specific features such as traffic patterns and conflict points. A certain level of standardisation across controller working positions also proved helpful for the ATCOs.
Flexible endorsement is not intended to make every ATCO work in every sector. Rather, the project assumes a certain level of flexibility regarding which ATCOs could potentially work in which sectors. The rules defining which ATCOs can be assigned to which sectors will need to be precisely established.
The concept offers benefits for ATCOs themselves. For example, ATCOs do not generally like working in sectors with only a few flights; they want to feel useful during their shift. Flexible endorsement can help to achieve this. Moreover, flexible endorsement relieves ATCOs from strictly servicing a specific amount of hours on one sector, but rather shows that the necessary competencies have been achieved.
In terms of implementation, EU regulation does not appear to pose any specific barriers to the flexible endorsement concept using the specified “endorsement under condition”. However, at individual country level, local safety agencies may need to amend national regulations. Some national regulators in Europe are interested in the project, as they acknowledge that changes may be needed to address the challenges of ATC understaffing and high traffic levels.
If flexible endorsement becomes a reality one day, ATCO skills will not change dramatically. IFAV3 aims to remove unnecessary workload from controllers while promoting what ATCOs want to do, and what they are trained for: solving complex problems. Moreover, the ATCO skill set may develop further in areas where AI is less effective, such as improvisation, flexibility and decision-making in uncertain situations.
Achieving runner-up place in the awards confirmed for the team that the project is moving in the right direction.
Michael Finke, IFAV3 project lead, DLR scientist and an active ATCO said: “Flexible controller endorsements is a highly relevant topic that has the potential to increase the possibilities of air traffic control.” Continued research in this area, including large-scale simulations and adaptations to different sectors, will make European airspace the most flexible sky in the world.
