Another Airspace World is in the books, but this one was different. Starting off with a new date and a new location, this was the busiest event so far with more than 7,000 attendees! The halls were really busy throughout the show, even the morning of the last day which normally has a substantial drop off due to attendees traveling home. The good weather seemed to bring a good mood as the attendees I met with all had positive feedback about this year’s event.
The week started with the CANSO Leadership Summit on Monday. I was honoured to be invited to moderate a panel focusing on High Airspace Operations with panelists from the FAA, ICAO, EASA, Sceye and the HAPS Alliance. The overall take-away from the panel is that collaboration is key. A theme that resonated throughout the entire Airspace World during these days. Easier said than done, but at least this seems to be at the top of everyone’s list for what needs to happen to keep moving ahead.
I have to mention the panel which followed considering the need to attract more talent to our industry. With ANSP executives from different regions it became apparent that the challenge is not the same depending on where you are. Regions like Northern Europe struggle to get enough applicants to fill their ATCO roles, whereas as regions like Brazil get thousands of applicants. Maybe it’s their TikTok channel? Yes DECEA has a TikTok channel. But seriously, new talent needs to be attracted in new ways.
The schedule for interviews was packed each day and I’ll only mention some highlights in this summary article. Stay tuned for in-depth interview articles coming over the next week.
Day one highlights
Wing – Winner of an ATM Award runner-up for their London Health Bridge project shared with me more about what is happening with this project. Today they are transporting health-related samples across London and to date have transported more than 4,000 samples. We also discussed their drone delivery program in the US, with 13 different clients offering their products for delivery. Not having used their delivery app personally I learned that the purchaser can select how they want their dinner delivered – for example. This question came up in response to my question as to what happens when the weather can’t support a drone flight. Ongoing work integrating with the ATM infrastructure is looking to support selecting an airspace flight path based on other traffic. This selection could be dynamic.
Airways New Zealand – The lead proof point for their stand was ‘95% success rate in ATCO training’. This is a huge number as the normal range for ATCO training success across ANSPs is 50-60%. Considering the average cost of training an ATCO is $1m, this is a pretty big loss of investment when there are unsuccessful candidates. What’s so different about the Airways program? It comes from all of the upfront qualification criteria enabled through a computerised candidate selection tool that was initially developed starting in 2011.
Innovation Panel – I also had the opportunity to moderate an executive panel discussing the topic of innovation. Is this still the way forward for our industry? Panelists represented LVNL, Airservices Australia, NAV CANADA and Frequentis. The panelists did a great job of considering this topic, how it pertains to the way we deploy technology and attract new talent. And the take-away was a resounding YES to the question regarding a future focused on innovation. And of course we need collaboration.
Day two
CANSO CATS CONOPS – CANSO held a press event to launch the new concept with a panel including NAV CANADA and Eve Air Mobility to discuss the implications of the comprehensive focus. With over 80 members across the aviation ecosystem, they really have representatives across the spectrum of the industry. The focus on working together toward a common goal – here’s that ‘collaboration’ topic again – is really the only way we can support the expected growth in the future. People want to fly, and the projection is a 2x increase in air traffic by 2043. Already in 2024, there has been a 6% increase in air traffic.
Dimetor – Announced a partnership with Frequentis to protect satellite navigation for aviation. In addition, when it comes to first responder drones, 5G can help. Every cell tower has a GNSS signal providing an additional resource to identify locations of first responder drones who currently don’t have GNSS protection. They are always testing the signal and can predict when/where there could be an outage. 5G is also moving into use in the defence world where digital twins are being used to create a live model that looks at airspace activity to support navigation warfare. Active spoofing, passive protection and increased situational awareness are the key criteria.
NATS – One of the coolest demos I saw at the show was in the NATS stand. The Airspace Integration demo brought together solutions from NATS, Eve Air Mobility, Altitude Angel, Bluenest and Searidge Technologies showing integrated airspace with eVTOLs using a vertiport, drones flying approved flight paths and remote tower monitoring. Very cool stuff!
Day Three
Nokia – The discussion with Nokia centered on MPLS networks for aviation. Or as they called it ‘connecting with wires’. ANSPs are using their infrastructure to support internal WAN connectivity, data centers with Zero Trust cybersecurity providing encryption where needed. Many readers may be aware of the mandatory NIS2 compliance in Europe beginning early in 2025. Companies are already preparing and aviation is included. The network provides micro-segmentation of applications, in the case of a breach it would remain limited to a single application. They pride themselves on their R&D efforts in this area with around 1,000 staff members – half focused on development and half on testing. Another differentiator is that existing applications can run on MPLS without needing to be converted to IP first. Their ANSP client base is larger than you might think with more than 20 ANSP clients globally. Announced customers include Avinor, ENAV, AirNav Ireland, Skyguide and VATM.
As mentioned above, look for more detailed interviews from the show to come over the next week. These only represent a few conversations and some of the more interesting take-aways I wanted to share. Thank you to everyone who took the time to speak with us in Lisbon!
