The EUROCAE Symposium and General Assembly took place in Dublin last week. The two day event was packed with panels and flash talks touching many of the current aviation topics: drones, regulatory frameworks, cyber security, and artificial intelligence (AI), to name a few. It was the opportunity for an interview with Anna von Groote, looking at the status of the association and future trends.
Q: Last year, new member representatives joined the Council, and this year a new President got elected. Do you expect changes, or rather continuity?
Member organisations are elected to the council, not persons. Multiple organisations changed their representatives indeed, and SITTI took over the place freed after EGIS left. Guillaume Roger (DGAC, France) completed his third and final year as president and Michael Holzbauer (Frequentis) was elected as new president. Michael has been EUROCAE Vice-President. This shows stability and continuity as he has contributed significantly to the organisation’s strategic direction and growth over many years already in that role.
Q: The number of EUROCAE members remains stable, after a phase of growth. Is this something you worry about?
Indeed, after several years of steep increase in the number of EUROCAE members, we see a stabilisation. There are multiple reasons for this plateau. Some consolidation took place in the drone industry, leading to a reduction of the number of members. We also observe some organisations now have a single group membership instead of multiple memberships for each group member. Together with the Council we don’t worry about this yet, but take it as a sign that extended engagement with members is required. We work on this and for example, we made the General Assembly more interactive this year. Looking back, there were 120 members when I joined in 2011 and there are close to 500 members today. The ATM industry is well covered and the number of potential additional members remains limited by the size of our branch.
Q: Students of Dublin City University attended the Symposium this year. What can EUROCAE offer to students?
We have to support the next generation of aviation professionals. We have students and interns every year joining us in the Secretariat and we are very open to this. They bring new ideas, new angles, and it is always an enriching experience. Students use standards in their academic works and it is important that they understand the process behind those documents. That’s why we offer a special fee for universities, and discounted prices for the students to follow our training courses or attend the Symposium.
Q: Drones and AI had a significant place at the symposium. How can EUROCAE keep up to speed with faster innovation and ensure that standards are not lacking behind?
It all comes down to the members and the resources they are willing to bring.
Look at COVID for example. The industry needed very quickly a standard for cockpit and aircraft cabin disinfection. EUROCAE delivered it in four months. We had similar results with standards for Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft, so it is possible. The AI standard will come out this year. We received 1500 comments and the Working Group must process them. Once again, speed is defined by the work of members in each Working Group. EUROCAE brings 7 Technical Programme Managers for around 50 active Working Groups, which is a lot of manpower, but the heavy-lifting needs to be done by the members, at their speed and commensurate of their needs.
Q: How does the work of EUROCAE go beyond European borders?
We have members from 45 countries, 75% from the ECAC area. We have a strong membership from the Asia-Pacific region, including good cooperation with Japan. Many EUROCAE standards are included in ICAO regulations, giving them immediate worldwide reach. Almost 75% of our standards are created in common with other organisations, like RTCA or SAE International, resulting in technically identical standards.
Q: Africa is not very well present yet, is this something you are working on?
South Africa is present and active, but you’re right, we could reach out to the continent and this would be welcome. For example, in April we participated actively in an event held in Namibia on regulations and soft law / standards. Our presence at ICAO is also part of this outreach and recently, some Kenyan representatives came to me and told me they use our standards. However, they did not know they could participate in their definition too. ICAO and international events are the right vehicle for this global outreach.
Q: Is there anything you would like to add?
EUROCAE is here, we’re open and ready for anything supporting aviation standards. Use us and the platform we provide to get the standards you need, we are here for you. As Florian Guillermet (EASA) said in his opening message during our Symposium: via EUROCAE, you can contribute to write your own means of compliance.
