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| Commissioner Violeta Bulc with Richard Deakin Signing the alliance agreement. Photo: NATS |
[Avionics Today 12-05-2014] The modernization of European airspace took a major step forward with the European Commission’s (EC) appointment of a unique aviation industry partnership to coordinate and synchronize more than $3.6 billion worth of upgrades to the continent’s Air Traffic Management (ATM) infrastructure.
The EC has tasked the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) Deployment Alliance — a cross-industry partnership made up of four airline groups, operators of 25 airports and 11 air traffic control providers — to plan and coordinate a wholesale modernization of European airspace. It has been appointed to the European Commission-mandated role of SESAR Deployment Manager, comprised of the A6 Alliance of ANSPs, the A4 airlines and the SESAR-related Deployment Airport Operators Group (SDAG), for an initial 6-year period the work.
The SESAR Deployment Manager will ensure that new technologies and solutions that have already been tested and validated through the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU) are delivered into everyday operations across Europe, offering significant benefits to airspace users and the environment. This planned increase in airspace performance is especially necessary in the face of a forecasted 50 percent traffic increase by 2035.