The SESAR Joint Undertaking annual conference took place on the 18th of February in Brussels. Beyond the usual celebration and look into the future for sustainable aviation and making European skies the most modern, integrated, digitalised and efficient, some key messages were highlighted.
No organisation can do it all alone
The number of challenges faced by Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) across Europe are on the rise. Marc Baumgartner, representing IFATCA, even insisted that the next summer could be a “perfect storm”. Benoit Fonck, Chief Programme Officer with SESAR JU insisted on how the mix of traffic growth, evolutions in regulations, need for more sustainability and more sum into a total task which no single organisation can face alone. The challenges that the industry faces can only be overcome working together and this is one of the very reasons for SESAR to exist.
The future starts now
In his keynote, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the new European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism cited Gandhi: “The future depends on what you do today”. This quote became the common theme of the day. The pace of innovation in Air Traffic Management (ATM) is not very high, for good reason, relating to the criticality of this industry. However, the conference was the occasion for some to advocate for the fact that other highly-regulated industries are faster. Tine Tomažič, Director of Engineering at aircraft manufacturer Pipistrel insisted on the need for ATM to learn faster and to learn this from other industries.
In this context, the importance of accelerating deployment was underlined, factors like: “best equipped best served” incentives, the right prioritisation and close coordination between stakeholders were discussed. There is a bit of a chicken and egg problem with “best equipped best served” as the airlines will not invest as long as they can’t get the benefits, and ANSPs will not give the benefits as long as airlines won’t be equipped…
Another thing could change in the future: Simon Hocquard, CANSO’s Managing Director underlined that ATM should not remain mostly invisible but should get more visibility and more recognition from the general public.
New Delivery Model
One term made its way to the highest levels of the European organisations and is presented as the key to faster deliveries and faster system improvements: new delivery model. Iacopo Prissinotti, Director Network Management at EUROCONTROL insisted on the fact that the new network management software runs on a cloud-based infrastructure, showing that such models are possible for ATM too. Whether it means serviceoriented architecture, cloud-based, or web-based, new delivery models should play a major role in the future.
Industry partners insisted that while such models are possible indeed, they have to rely on a strong cybersecurity infrastructure. This will require new expertise and leads to a critical question: should ANSPs carry this expertise themselves or rely on third party providers?
In light of the 2050 long-term strategy and its net-zero ambition, the combination of SAF, technology and ATM are seen as the key factors from the aviation perspective. ATM was called the “low-hanging fruit”, putting pressure on our industry and regulators to accelerate efforts.
Drones and a double-sided event
The event is organised in two distinct parts: an exhibition hall where 43 SESAR projects are presented and an auditorium where the presentations and panels are held. The two are really distinct as the presentations did not mention any specific project. This separation can give a strange impression but with more than 137 projects delivered, any pick from presenters in the auditorium would be arbitrary.
Of the 43 projects presented in the exhibition, roughly a third related to drones in one way or another. Other popular topics include AI, remote and digital towers but also more advanced concepts like flight centric control.
Networking opportunities
Beyond the formal aspects of such events, the SESAR JU Annual Conference is a great networking opportunity. One single trip to Brussels gives the opportunity to meet representatives of ANSPs across Europe, the industry, academia and more. With 550 participants, the attendance had the right size to allow for personal contacts, without being overwhelming.
Kudos to SESAR JU on the organisation of a dynamic event with interesting panels and sufficient time for personal interaction. Such a yearly event could become repetitive and boring but this was definitely not the case.
