European AIS Database (EAD)

The European aeronautical information services database (EAD) is a centralised reference database of quality-assured aeronautical information that enables users to retrieve and download AIS data in real time.

It provides instant access to the most up-to-date digital aeronautical information from the ECAC and ECAC+ areas, from Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs), pre-flight information bulletins (PIBs), briefing facility services and the AIP library.

The EAD is the world’s largest aeronautical information management (AIM) system.

a reliable and cost-effective integrated AIS solution that meets user needs;
access to real-time data of guaranteed integrity and quality;
consistency with ICAO and EUROCONTROL standards and recommendations;
a secure channel for a timely electronic distribution of aeronautical information;
support to clients during their transition to the EAD;
service availability 24h per day, 7 days per week.

The EAD is safer, faster, more accurate and more cost-effective than older, non-harmonised methods of AIS data collection and delivery. It increases the availability and accessibility of AIS information, and it contributes to reducing safety risks related to the distribution and publication of aeronautical information.

On 9 December 2016, EUROCONTROL became the first pan-European aeronautical information service provider to be certified under the Single European Sky legislation regarding the provision of the European AIS Database (EAD).

Aeronautical information regulation and control (AIRAC) dates

2 July 2020

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Data providers use the database to directly maintain and distribute their own aeronautical information. They retain full control of – and intellectual property rights over – the information they input into the EAD.

EAD data providers include:

aeronautical information services (AIS) organisations within civil aviation authorities, air navigation service providers (ANSPs), and military administrations;
designated organisations which maintain data that does not fall under the responsibility of national agencies.

Data users consult and download data or aeronautical publications, and generate reports from the EAD.

Typical data users include:

aeronautical information services (AIS), civil aviation authorities, air navigation service providers (ANSPs), military administrations, airports, etc,
aircraft operators,
international organisations,
private pilots,
commercial users and
the general public.

Coverage

Data sourced globally include original and processed NOTAM, SNOWTAM and ASHTAM messages, as well as the minimum set of static data , as per ICAO PANS-AIM (10096), required for NOTAM validation and pre-flight information bulletin (PIB) generation.

Data from ECAC States and beyond include original and processed NOTAM, SNOWTAM and ASHTAM, AIPs, AICs, amendments, supplements, charts, as well as the full set of aeronautical information published in AIP. It also covers aerodrome information, including procedures, obstacles, en-route information such as airspace, routes, navaids and waypoints, and general information such as organisation, authority and units.

Worldwide EAD users

The EAD has been providing AIS services for over 15 years. As of January 2020, 54 States worldwide, including 43 ECAC States, are using EAD services as data providers and some 200 are using the services as data users.

Services

As a central repository of aeronautical information, the EAD offers a number of services through its associated integrated sub-systems that support the daily operations of AIS units, including:

EAD SDO/SDD

Static data operations

More info

EAD eAIPHT

Electronic aeronautical information publication and chart production

More info

EAD PAMS

Published aeronautical information publication management service

More info

EAD INO

International NOTAM operations

More info

EAD BF

Air traffic services reporting officers briefing facility

More info

EAD WFM

Workflow management

More info

Access modes

The two main access modes for EAD services offer the following:

EAD PRO (B2C)	MY EAD (B2B)
The EAD is accessible with a software package installed on your PC. It can be run on a dedicated terminal (EAD Client Interface Terminal) Connected to the EAD through a secure internet connection.	The EAD is accessible through an interface that allows a system-to-system connection to the EAD, based on Web services (AIM Service Layer).
Service characteristics: Access to data as required by ICAO PANS-AIM document (10066). Access to all EAD sub-systems (SDO, INO, PAMS, BF). Available after signature of an EAD Agreement.	Service characteristics: Data as required by ICAO PANS-AIM document (10066). Access to all EAD sub-systems (SDO, INO, PAMS, BF). Available after signature of an EAD Agreement.
Software license required. Yearly maintenance fee required. The price list is available here.	No software license required. No yearly maintenance fee required.
Ready-to-run software package.	Best solution to embed EAD data directly into existing system.
Clients are provided with all the necessary documentation, software and training (if requested) once an EAD Agreement has been signed. If you already have an EAD Pro account, you can log on to the application using your EAD UserID. Access EAD Pro	Clients are provided with all the necessary technical documentation and software once an EAD Agreement has been signed.

EAD Basic

In addition to this, we offer our free access application for the general public, EAD Basic, which shows the services provided by the EAD by allowing consultation of a limited set of aeronautical information.

The information accessible via EAD Basic is for general purposes only. For safety and security reasons, the data shall not be used for operational purposes.

Access EAD Basic

In order to access EAD Basic, please complete our registration form. Once registered, you will receive an automated email with your access details.

It enables a user to retrieve a dedicated data set at defined intervals (e.g. AIRAC cycle) from EAD for further processing by a local system. A great solution if a continuous connection with the database is not required and updates are needed only when data changes. Data files are made available through the EAD internet filing system (EAD IFS).

If needed, NOTAM information contained in the EAD can also be made available through a regular AFTN connection.

Charges

Use of the services made available by the EAD is subject to the payment of charges. They include service charges as well as royalty fees, applied by the Member States, when EAD data is made available by the client to third party end users.

The table below shows the applicable charges per client type:

	Service charges	Royalty fees
Type 1 Clients acting on behalf of a Member State of EUROCONTROL. Clients having signed a Comprehensive Agreement with EUROCONTROL. Airspace users paying en-route charges for flights operated partly or entirely in the ECAC area.	No	No
Type 2 Clients using EAD data for their operational business without reselling, or commercialising the EAD data and/or value added products, and without contributing to EUROCONTROL's budget or paying en-route charges.	Yes	No
Type 3 Entities, public or private, who intend to commercialise the EAD data with or without value-added products (e.g. data warehouses, software companies, etc.)	Yes	Yes

In order to establish EAD Charges, the Client is requested to provide its yearly turnover.

Type 2 clients

For ANSPs of non-EUROCONTROL Member States countries, or States with a Comprehensive Agreement with EUROCONTROL, the turnover is defined by the cost base for the provision of air navigation services financed through various invoicing mechanism, e.g. en-route air navigation charges for ANSPs and CAA, Terminal Air Navigation Charges or fees for airports, other specific fees or charges.

For other type 2 clients, the turnover is defined by the budget of the entity using EAD information (e.g. university department).

Type 3 clients

Revenues generated by products or the services using information provided by the EAD. This may include:

Software applications using EAD data in a feature or to provide an output. If this feature is part of an integrated application and cannot be separated from it or sold separately as an ad-on service, it will be the turnover of the entire application;
Consultancy or software development services based on or using EAD data;
Any other service using the data.

If no turnover is available yet (start-up), a flat fee per year is applied.

The amount of charges will be determined during the discussion on the EAD agreement between the EAD service and the client. Clients will be asked to produce the related turnover evidence.

In addition, each EAD data user should have adequate liability insurance coverage, the level of which depends on the usage of the EAD data.

When the EAD data user chooses to access the EAD services through the ready-to-run EAD Pro software package, a yearly software license applies. The price list is available here.

When the EAD data user chooses to access through MyEAD (B2B web services based called AIMSL – AIM Service Layer), or through manual data download in the case of SDO static data, no additional charges apply.

The EAD will issue annual invoices to the EAD client. Payment must be made by the client within a period of thirty calendar days from the date of the invoice, using the bank account details indicated in the invoice.

Each invoice will be issued in the standard EUROCONTROL format. The original invoice will be sent by regular post to clients in addition to a scanned (PDF) version sent by e-mail.

Please do treat any e-mail as suspicion if you are being asked for financial information or being informed about a change of bank account number, even if the email looks as though it comes from eurocontrol.int.

If you receive dubious e-mails or calls, please contact the EAD service immediately via our contacts.

Becoming a client

EAD data providers

If you are a data provider interested in joining the EAD, please contact us via our contacts form.

EAD data users

Interested data users should follow these steps to join:

Fill in and submit the online EAD service request form, providing a detailed explanation of the envisaged EAD data usage and indicating the required services (INO, SDO, PAMS), the desired type of access, as well as any training needs.

Connecting to the EAD is only possible after the conclusion of a formal agreement outlining each party’s responsibilities and obligations, the applicable charges and the required level of liability insurance.

Upon receipt of your request, the EAD service will contact you to provide you with a template of the agreement and to start the discussion of the EAD agreement.

Following the signature of the EAD agreement, you will be guided and assisted during the technical set-up process. We will also provide you with all relevant technical documentation.

An EAD Migration Manager will be designated to assist you with technical matters such as network requirements and available interfaces (B2B, B2C) or the purchase of the EAD Pro software (B2C) and related software licenses.

An EAD Training Manager will handle your training needs.

MyEAD clients are granted access to the EAD operational systems following the testing, validation and approval of their interface.

EAD Pro users can start retrieving data from the EAD operational environment as soon as the software package is installed and functional.

Support

We provide support and training for EAD clients - data providers and users - during the migration process, as well as during operational activities, as follows:

Classroom courses by Group EAD

The correct and efficient use of the EAD requires detailed knowledge of the EAD applications. We offer training for EAD users through GroupEAD. For information on our training offer, please visit the EAD Training Catalogue. Taught by experts with extensive hands-on experience in using the EAD systems, the courses take place in a variety of locations.

Classroom courses by the EUROCONTROL Institute of Air Navigation Services in Luxembourg

EUROCONTROL's Institute provides information management courses, the contents of which can be consulted in the Airspace Management section of the IANS Training Catalogue.

The EAD Service Desk is a service available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to EAD-migrated clients (Data Providers & Data Users) for the handling of technical and operational enquiries.

The Knowledge Base is based on the experience gained by all EAD users. It is available to Data Providers and Data Users as a primary source of information and support.

The Knowledge Base tool enables searches on EAD-related topics to address client issues and can be accessed by means of the Helpdesk button on the EAD explorer button bar.

It offers multiple profiles to access a range of information. As a consequence, different users might see different results when searching in the Knowledge Base.

Users can search for a solution in the database by entering keywords in the search field or they can browse through the top solutions to find an answer to their request.

The SDO Input Guidance Manual (SIGMA) is a web-based support tool for EAD SDO Data Operators. It provides a single point of access for SDO Operators for data maintenance support guidelines. It was introduced in 2009 and bridges the AIS and AIXM (SDO) world of understanding.

SIGMA is available to both MyEAD and EAD Pro users.

SIGMA offers up-to-date SDO input guidance support through:

Single-source access for operational SDO data management aspects;
"Single point of entry" for access to SDO-relevant operational content;
Diverse views of the European AIS Database (EAD) AIP, data harmonisation, operational rules and SDO perspectives.

Digital aeronautical data is a key enabler for automated flight support systems in ATM. In order to fulfil operational requirements, a pre-requisite is the availability and quality of aeronautical data.

Due to the large volumes and complexity of the data requested, the existing static data consistency review process has been enhanced with SDO data completeness procedures and a specific Data Completeness and Annotation tool (SDC Tool).

In addition, the SDC tool is used for data annotation to support the transition for compliance with European Commission Regulation (EU) 73/2010 and with EASA certification requirements.

Data Completeness

As part of the quality requirements, a Data Completeness process has been set up to facilitate the monitoring of static data. This is enabled through the SDC tool and data provider procedures, as described in the EAD SDO Data Completeness Guidelines. SDC data is based on a two monthly AIRAC cycle (56 days), a replication of the SDO production data. The Data Provider can use the SDC tool to monitor and identify missing data and provide indications of how complete the data is.

Annotation

The EAD SDO static data set is described in the EAD Data Catalogue, which is based on ICAO Annex 15.
The EAD has implemented a specific solution, based on the SDC tool, to facilitate the annotation of non-compliant data items.
The SDC allows ADQ annotations and DQR annotations. The EAD publishes, for each Data Provider, the resulting annotation report. This allows EAD clients to be informed about the ADQ & DQR annotation status of each data item provided by the EAD.
The ADQ and DQR annotations are updated every double AIRAC and EAD clients are informed in advance of the SDC update.
The publication of notation reports can be accessed by EAD clients through the EAD Knowledge Base by going to ADQ - Annotation reports.
For data maintenance support guidelines, consult the SIGMA – SDO Input Guidance Manual.

Data model

AIXM is the backbone of the EAD and represents both the data model on which the static data (SDO) is based and the means of exchanging the aeronautical data.

The EAD supports AIXM 4.5 in uploading and downloading aeronautical data in SDO and, since Release 10, also uploading and downloading in AIXM 5.1 format.

AIXM 5.1 is the version of the data model and exchange schema implemented in the EAD which complies with European Commission (EU) Regulation 73/2010), with the ICAO SARPS provisions regarding electronic obstacle data (part of eTOD) and with the Digital NOTAM.

To date, the EAD supports BASELINE data exchange for uploading aeronautical data and BASELINE and/or PERMDELTA for downloads in AIXM 5.1 format.

The specifications on which the implementation of AIXM 5.1 in the EAD is based are listed below:

AIXM 5.1 Temporality Concept (the EAD has developed a more detailed AIXM 5.1 Temporality Implementation specification, which is included in the SDD XML Primer (available for EAD Clients));
AIXM 5.1 Feature Identification and Reference;
AIXM 5.1 Business Rules (the rules identified in the EAD Profile);
AIXM 5.1 Application Schema and Extensions (for AIXM 5.1 extensions);
OGC Use of GML for Aviation Data (ref. OGC 12-028r1 – the GML Profile provided in this specification has been implemented in the EAD since EAD Release 11).

Certification and data quality

Pursuant to Regulation (EC) 216/2008 1 ^[1] and Commission Regulation (EU) No 1035/2011 2 ^[2] , EUROCONTROL has been certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), since 9 December 2016, as an air navigation service provider organisation certified to provide air navigation services as listed in the service provision conditions, laid down in the attachment to the below certificate, and under the conditions of this certificate.

In this context, it is important to note that aeronautical data and information transferred to and stored in EAD SDO database do not comply with the requirements of the Commission Regulation EU 73/2010 3 ^[3] on aeronautical data quality, because the EAD has not received the full compliance statement regarding data quality or the required mandatory data quality attributes from all States and, as a consequence, cannot claim full DQR compliance for States within the scope of this regulation.

However, since the EAD is applying Commission Regulation (EU) 73/2010, the level of compliance for the Sates within the scope of this regulation is monitored by EAD and accessible from the EAD website at the following link.

Furthermore, under the same Commission Regulation (EU) 73/2010, “Member States shall ensure that air navigation service providers comply with the data quality requirements laid down in Annex IV, Part A” (Art 6,a) and “Aeronautical information service providers shall ensure that aeronautical data and aeronautical information items published in the AIP of their Member State are annotated to indicate those that do not meet the data quality requirements laid down in this Regulation”.

In this context EUROCONTROL cooperates actively with the Sates within the scope of the Regulation, with a view to assisting them in improving data quality, and publishes via the above link their annotation reports showing DQR compliance for each data item.

^[1]REGULATION (EC) No 216/2008 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 20 February 2008 on common rules in the field of civil aviation and establishing a European Aviation Safety Agency, and repealing Council Directive 91/670/EEC, Regulation (EC) No 1592/2002 and Directive 2004/36/EC;
^[2] COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING REGULATION (EU) No 1035/2011 of 17 October 2011 laying down common requirements for the provision of air navigation services and amending Regulations (EC) No 482/2008 and (EU) No 691/2010 (Text with EEA relevance);
^[3] COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) No 73/2010 of 26 January 2010 laying down requirements on the quality of aeronautical data and aeronautical information for the single European sky.

Governance and evolution

The EAD Service Steering Group (SSG) is predominantly a service and business oriented group with the aim of providing high-level guidance in all areas supporting the EAD as an integrated, harmonized and interoperable solution for the use of safe, secured and high-quality aeronautical information.

It steers EAD service provision through continued involvement in the EAD, maintaining commitment from its stakeholders, encouraging the use of a standardised approach to the exchange of aeronautical information and related data.

It is composed of

senior representatives, from civil and military governmental organisations and corporatized, or privatised Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) organisations, with a vested interest to provide, or with responsibility for the provision of, aeronautical information in EAD for, or on behalf of, an ECAC Member State;
any State that is not member of ECAC but is committed or migrated to the EAD as a Data Provider.

Additional representatives may be granted observer status, including, but not limited to, senior representatives from international aeronautical organisations, aircraft operators, airline associations, the European Union (EU) and airport operators.

The enhanced European AIS Database (eEAD) is the first step towards the realisation of the target EAIMS project. The new eEAD will ensure the continuation at least of all services and functions of the current EAD system. An eEAD system to replace the current AIS database is being procured through an open call for tenders (CFT).

eEAD CONOPS

This eEAD Concept of Operations (CONOPS) document (edition 6.0) describes the overall operational concept of the eEAD and in particular the services it provides. It will be used as a reference for the future eEAD procurement.

This document takes into consideration all requirements that stakeholders have of the current EAD services and systems. The CONOPS has passed through several workshops and successive consultation rounds with all actors of the aviation business, including ANSPs of EUROCONTROL Member States, airspace users, major data houses and the aircraft operations industry.

This CONOPS 6.0 was endorsed unanimously by the EAD Service Steering Group members at their 27th meeting. The document represents the official scope of the eEAD project. The document is available for download below. For any questions on this matter, please contact the eEAD Project Manager.

EAIMS

The European ATM Information Management Service (EAIMS) is a Network Manager Strategic Project (part of the Network Strategy Plan). The project is in line with activities taking place under the SESAR Deployment Programme and the (Pilot) Common Projects. The goal of EAIMS is to ensure access to consolidated, consistent and NM operationally validated data in a seamless and transparent way from a single access point in support of ARO/AIS/ASM/ATFCM/ATS, flight operations and airport operations.

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