The next generation of Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems will have a service oriented architecture and use cloud-based technologies – this is called the “new delivery model”. Multiple European Air Navigation Service Provides (ANSPs) and major industry providers recently published a joint statement to support this new approach. Listen to what Skyguide CTO Klaus Meier and DFS CTO Friedrich-Wilhelm Menge said about it on our podcast.
There are many reasons to go for this approach, but the only one highlighted in this article is that decomposing monolithic software in smaller software components opens the way for more competition. The way each service communicates with others is clearly defined and services can be developed independently, possibly by different service providers.
Imagine a small, highly specialised company with an innovative solution to solve one very specific problem. With the new service delivery model, this company could develop only one service and would get the same chances to sell it to ANSPs as any competitor. This would make the market faster and more competitive.
Enter the Design or Production Organisation idea
In parallel to the development of new service delivery models, a regulatory development took place with the publication of the EU directive 2023/1769, which introduces Design or Production Organisation (DPO) and the processes managing ATM / CNS changes.
A detailed explanation of the regulation is way beyond the scope of this article but it can be summarised as follows:
- Any organisation involved in the design or production of ATM systems must be registered with EASA and demonstrate a series of capabilities, among others in terms of quality management
- Any change to an ATM system which is deemed significant enough must be notified to and approved by EASA
- Changes of lesser significance must be notified to EASA for information
- Smaller, less significant changes must not be notified to EASA.
This new approach is similar to the certification of aircraft manufacturers and while it makes sense from the perspective of EASA to apply similar processes to the world of ATM, it raises some questions.
Extra hurdles, costs transfers and the question of resources
The certification as DPO represents an additional hurdle, especially for small organisations. There are pros and cons to smaller ATM system providers and I personally have a sweet spot for smaller companies. The coming requirement for a registration as DPO is obviously weighing more heavily on an organisation with, for example, 25 employees than on one with 2,500 or more. Future DPOs can only forward the certification costs to their customers. Here again, the one-price-fits-all approach will weigh more heavily on smaller organisations than on larger ones.
Another question remains to be answered: how will EASA manage the dozens of potential DPOs across Europe and hundreds, if not thousands, of changes to be examined every year? Where will the agency find the experts and resources for those activities without becoming the bottleneck of system evolution?
One option would be to delegate those new activities to national regulators in each country, which already have some experience managing their local ANSPs. This would nevertheless represent more work for the national regulators. Moreover, it would be an open door to many local interpretations of the standards and procedures.
Alternatively, EASA could hire a significant number of ATM systems experts, most likely poaching them from the industry, from ANSPs or from national regulators. This would definitely not help with the required modernisation.
Uncertainty ahead
The implementation details still are unclear at this time: it is unclear how long the DPO certification and change approval processes will take. Will they be short, swift but possibly superficial processes, or longer, deeper, slower checks? Will all players be subject to the same rules, or will the national regulators play a major role?
Can the ideas behind the new service delivery model be implemented under the new regulations? Probably, but the expected acceleration of innovation will be impacted. And competition could be limited to only a handful of large companies.
