The ATM industry’s ability to manage airspace in the face of geopolitical crisis, extreme weather, and mass sporting events was the focus of an in-depth media briefing at Airspace World 2026 in Lisbon on Tuesday. Chaired by CANSO, the session brought together operational and strategic voices from across the global ATM community to examine how the industry collaborates under pressure and show-casing the challenges and resilience of the ATM system.
When airspace closes
The most acute test of ATM resilience in recent years has been the closure of Ukrainian and Middle Eastern airspace. Farhan Guliyev, Director of AZANS, the Azerbaijani Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP), presented the first case study from one of the front lines of that disruption.
The closure of airspace across the regions of Ukraine and Middle East has forced adjacent sectors to reroute traffic at scale, placing the ANSP under sustained capacity pressure. In May 2026, Azerbaijan airspace recorded the highest traffic levels ever, with overflights increasing by over 25%.
Farhan Guliyev explained, “Azerbaijan’s airspace has undeniably become a critical transit corridor for global aviation – a vital aerial Suez Canal connecting Europe and Asia”.
To ensure safe and efficient continuation of air traffic flow in the region, AZANS undertook a series of proactive actions, including enhancement of civil-military coordination, enhanced information sharing with adjacent ANSPs, airspace restructuring and continuous workload monitoring. The challenges are ongoing and lessons learnt are continuously implemented.
Preparing for the FIFA World Cup 2026
“The World Cup will bring millions of people together, and aviation plays a key role in making that possible”, said Simon Hocquard, President and CEO of CANSO.
Major sport events present a different kind of planning challenge. As the countdown to the FIFA World Cup – the largest sporting event of 2026 – begins, Javier Vanegas, CANSO’s Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, outlined the scale of the air traffic flow management challenge, which will have to face simultaneous traffic surge across the region’s entire airspace and challenging weather conditions, characteristic for the region at this time of the year.
The response draws on a collaboration of technology partners – including Thales, Metron Aviation, PASSUR Aerospace, and Aireon – deploying predictive modelling and real-time optimisation tools to help ANSPs coordinate across borders and optimise airspace efficiency.
Josué González, Regional Officer, Air Traffic Management and Search and Rescue, ICAO pointed out: “Preparing for the FIFA World Cup 2026 presents a significant opportunity for the aviation community to strengthen regional cooperation, coordination, and air traffic management across Latin America and the Caribbean. By collaborating, ICAO, CANSO, IATA, States, ANSPs, and industry partners can adopt a unified approach to manage increased traffic and ensure safe, efficient, and resilient operations.”
COMPASS and the logic of shared platforms
The third case study moved from geopolitical disruption to a different class of constraint: space launches and the need for shared situational awareness for all stakeholders. Nicki Harricharan, CANSO’s Operations Programme Manager, and Brett Fujisaki, VP Sales and Business Development at Metron Aviation, used this as the entry point for introducing COMPASS. Space launches impose hard-edged restrictions on airspace and demand rapid information exchange across multiple stakeholders, making them a useful stress test for any coordination architecture.
COMPASS is designed to serve as the single coordination layer across all disruption types, whether geopolitical closures, planned high-traffic events, or severe weather. Rather than relying on fragmented point-to-point arrangements between ANSPs, it offers unified network visibility and the tools to identify and execute smart rerouting solutions at a system level.
An industry finding its coordination mechanisms
The Q&A that followed drew journalists into broader questions: how well is the aviation industry genuinely collaborating to ensure the safe flow of air traffic and what benefits are expected from new technologies.
Simon Hocquard hinted with his answers to key themes of the panels at Airspace World: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere and most probably more used in aviation and ATM than we realise”, and added: “We do not know which services will be actually required in the next 25 years”. The Q&A concluded with the commitment to the human in the loop: “Technology is great, we have a lot of shiny tools, but it is all about people”.
The answers emerging from Lisbon to the complex airspace challenges will include greater collaboration, communication and sharing of data, systems and processes – the pressure to use them has never been greater.
