European ANSP Board Holds First Meeting

Eurocontrol said the first meeting this week of a new Air Navigation Services Board (ANSB) represented a major step forward in its Single European Sky effort.

The ANSB was created to ensure that all of the major groups involved in air-traffic management are integrated in Eurocontrol’s decisionmaking structures. The board is comprised of eight representatives of air navigation service providers, five representatives of airspace users, one military representative and one airport representative. The first chairman is Dieter Kaden, chairman and CEO of German air navigation service provider DFS.

The new body will focus on areas where Eurocontrol provides functions and services, paying particular attention to business plans and business cases, financial commitments and strategic input into projects and activities.

The meeting, held Tuesday in Brussels, “marks a major change in the way Eurocontrol works with its stakeholders, and is an important milestone in our drive to create a Single European Sky,” said David McMillan, director general. “While we remain an intergovernmental organization, answering to our member states, if we want to create the unified ATM environment that will form the basis of the Single European Sky we need to
involve all our partners very closely in our activities.”