Philip Church

The growth in airspace users, local level capacity limits and challenges in recruiting the next generation of controllers means the focus for digitisation and ATM system modernisation will have to be at the local level as a staging post to wider deployments, writes Philip Church, Aviation Director at Egis.

We have faced a series of challenges in the industry – technical, operational, and economic – but the constant throughout has been the widespread recognition that aviation is growing, more capacity is needed and this can only be solved with innovative solutions. By the early 2000s, we’d already deployed 8.33, Mode-S radar, B-RNAV and RVSM, delivering substantial improvements in operational efficiency and significantly increasing capacity in the en-route sectors. Since then, work has continued on the next technical enablers and procedural changes that solve operational blockers, with contributions from EUROCONTROL and SESAR playing an important role over this time.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is interesting to reflect on the progress made, the barriers we faced, and look at where new focus might be needed going forward. It is especially important as technology has become more accessible and enables things to be done today that were not even thought about back then. During the early 2000s, we were busy defining ATC safety nets, collaborative decision making (CDM), automatic dependent surveillancebroadcast (ADS-B) and its applications, advancedsurface movement guidance and control systems (A-SMGCS), performance based navigation (PBN – including EGNOS), datalink (VHF and SATCOM), aeronautical data exchange formats, system-wide information management (SWIM) and its services – all accompanied by numerous large scale flight trials. We ended up with numerous solutions that found their way into international industry standards and were recognised in regulatory frameworks, including ICAO, with the introduction of the aviation system block upgrades (ASBUs). We discussed and prepared the relevant safety cases for each solution and there were numerous conversations as we examined yet another cost-benefit analysis and discussed whether enough value was being realised by technologies already deployed on aircraft by airlines.

The need to realise benefits from previous investments has not changed and core to efforts today is a need to look ahead and focus limited resources where they can be deployed to the greatest effect. This is the role fulfilled by the SESAR ATM Masterplan and the ICAO Global Air Navigation Plan (GANP), anticipating what will be needed and developing the next building blocks that can be deployed (regionally or locally) to support continued growth. The big change in the landscape is digitalisation. Everyone is talking about it or working on it. But what do we mean by it? We have been discussing the creation of digital solutions to exchange flight information or inform flight planning for many years. For example, the discussions on SWIM services and Flight Object which, it could be argued, have not been as extensively deployed as originally envisaged. Digitalised implementations here have tended to be local and piecemeal rather than widespread.

We certainly seem to have had more success in deploying localised solutions compared to ones requiring cross-border coordination (in the European sense), as the arguments on the solution to be deployed can be made locally with reference to locally delivered benefits so budgets can be allocated and decisions can be made. If we think here about the difference between en-route, terminal manoeuvring area (TMA) and airport and where decisions lie, it becomes clearer that there is more of a challenge in the en-route – especially when we want to share information across multiple boundaries. At the heart of this is the ATM system and its ability to “talk” to another system that sits across the national boundary. Currently, ATM systems are developed in isolation, they are often “monolithic” systems built to national specifications, talking different languages and so struggle to understand each other.

Even the use of common languages such as OLDI can result in varying implementations so that not all messages are available across borders. Interoperability will enable improved data accuracy and content, realtime updates, and information exchange at a level that will allow the full implementation of trajectorybased operations. A move to interoperable systems has however proved to be a greater challenge than originally anticipated, with key deployments in the area being either repeatedly delayed or scaled down over the last 15 years. Most systems in Europe still rely on technology that has been deployed since the 1980s. With the need for more efficient use of airspace accentuating again after COVID and a significant number of ATM systems reaching their end of life, ATM suppliers and air navigation services providers (ANSPs) have been working together to enable a step change with next-generation ATM systems planned to meet common project one (CP1) requirements and include key deployments such as SWIM. Major ANSPs and the key system suppliers active in Europe have renewed their commitment to a “modern, datadriven, and cloud-based service-oriented architecture (SOA) delivery mode” based on “open architecture and interfaces, decoupling of service and infrastructure layers and a cloud native architecture of components”. Given such a statement, the next five to ten years will be crucial with most new implementations planned in the 2028-2030 timeframe. However, it is also an example of the slow pace we have in aviation of adopting new technologies, given that SOA was first used in other industries 30 years ago!

The drivers across all developments have been to improve safety and efficiency. Digitalisation and computing power available today offer more opportunities than at any time in the past 25 years. And this is recognised as a priority goal within the Single European Airspace System – specifically referring to the recommendation from the SESAR report calling to “Realise the de-fragmentation of European skies through virtualisation and the free flow of data among trusted users”. This was complemented by the “wise persons group” call for the short-term measures “to make better use of modern digital data, automation and communications technologies”. Given that the deployment of new systems is delayed, it seems that this goal remains a challenge at the network level going forward.

"Digitalisation and computing power available today offer more opportunities than at any time in the past 25 years."

What happens while we wait for these new systems and wider digitalisation? We seem to be remarkably capable of adapting and ensuring that the overall performance delivered by the ATM system continues to improve. Looking at the data over the past 15 years we can see that the level of en-route efficiency is good, ATCO productivity has been increasing and delay has reduced by more than half of what it was in 2010 despite the increase in traffic over the same period. However, while delay has halved ATCO productivity has not doubled, and indeed the number of controllers has increased. This could imply that the introduction of ATC tools and other capabilities, such as controller pilot datalink communications (CPDLC), are having a positive impact, combined with the increasing number of controllers, and that in the short term we need more controllers. Indeed, in Europe, between 2005 and 2019 (when traffic was at its highest pre-COVID and increased by around 20%) the number of controllers grew by 8%. This is one way of increasing capacity but it is a significant investment and with delayed payback. It takes time before validation at sector and unit level is achieved. Given these timings, any new controllers added to the system today will then need to adapt to deployment on the new systems as they become available post-2028.

Looking forward three years from now we might then consider where the capacity and efficiency gaps are likely to be. With current rules on ATC investment, it is going to be a challenge to tackle the investment of new ATC systems and increased digitalisation in the short term whilst also attracting new controllers. Given the historic growth in controllers to meet capacity needs, this implies an investment of around €150 million per year in Europe alone. But growing controller numbers can only be considered part of the solution as at some point we will reach an efficiency and safety limit where new controllers might bring limited benefits. When coupled with the push to invest in digital tools it raises another key question: are we focusing our limited resources in the right areas?

As we continue to look at this, the deployment context gets more complex. We do not yet have the next generation of ATM systems that support new tools and digitalisation, but we have an increasing challenge with more aircraft, more complex airspace – especially in the TMA – the introduction of new airspace users and consequently more pressure on the airspace. All of this needs to be resolved while recognising our obligations to be more environmentally friendly and sustainable. The challenge moving forward will not just be on the status of ATM systems but also the ability to attract the right calibre of staff.

The data shows that we are solving some of the short-term problems with increasing ATCO numbers and there is a widespread view that today there is a shortage of ATCOs. This is not the same everywhere, but it is also nothing new. As far back as 2003 it was already recognised as an issue and that challenge will remain while we wait for the new ATM systems and need to balance the ATC demands en-route, and within the TMA and airport.

"The challenge moving forward will not just be on the status of ATM systems but also the ability to attract the right calibre of staff."

Perhaps the greater challenge within the TMA and airports is answering how existing operating procedures, tools and solutions can be deployed to deliver local capacity before new systems and infrastructure are available. In the past decade, runway capacity has remained relatively constant in Europe – very few new runways have been built. Efforts to increase airport capacity are hampered by local resistance. There is more sensitivity to aircraft movements, emissions and noise than ever before. So today, with the TMA becoming a bottleneck, we need to show that the innovations not only meet the needs of the aviation industry but also benefit as much as possible those living under the approach and departure routes. It’s an interesting dilemma where understanding the unintended consequences of innovation and its impact on local communities needs thought whilst we battle with addressing the capacity limits placed at local levels.

If we then assume that these capacity limits are being placed locally at airport level and there is still a growing demand for travel and airborne connectivity, it would be reasonable to consider that there might be a change in the traffic flows regionally to a more distributed model of transport that moves away from today’s hub and spoke model, or at least moves to a regionally focused view. There has been much more talk about new airspace users and who they are going to serve, and this is the subject of ongoing research and development. It is interesting that many of the new electric regional aircraft are targeting operational certification before the new ATM systems are ready. This will bring challenges and might lead to opening more direct regional links that would relieve demand at the key hubs but introduce additional demand in the network and within the TMAs when there is already a challenge in delivering new controller.

In this operational context digitalisation will be key and the need for flight information sharing between ANSPs/U-space service providers (USSPs) – even within a State – might mean a working flight object is needed.

We are not yet ready with new ATM systems that fully unlock the benefits of digitalisation, but new solutions are still being developed and demonstrated, expanding the shopping basket of options available. This will just add to the changes and improvements in efficiency and capacity realised in the past 20 years. While there remains room for efficiency en-route, the growth in airspace users, local level capacity limits and challenges in recruiting the next generation of ATCOs would seem to indicate that the next focus will have to be at the local level as a staging post to wider deployments. What solutions are available, where can they be deployed and how can we then capitalise on and integrate deployed solutions from the bottom up? How can we leverage the benefits of local deployments and lessons learnt through this to the wider network to deliver network benefits and deployment more quickly? In the meantime, with public concerns around aviation ever present, we need to evidence how aviation is a force for good and is committed to delivering on sustainability measures. This might demand a more pragmatic approach that addresses local needs with deployable solutions that can then be integrated digitally and deliver the necessary network benefits.

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