EC Moves Forward on Interoperability of European Air Traffic Management Systems
July 12, 2006
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The European Commission (EC) recently adopted two regulations concerning the interoperability of European air traffic management systems that aim at modernising such systems.
Jacques Barrot, EC commissioner in charge of transport, said, "These legal instruments are milestones in the implementation of the Single Sky, as they establish clear interoperability requirements for the systems used by service providers to run their business to high safety and efficiency standards, for civil and military airspace users to make best use of congested skies and for the air traffic controllers who handle over 27,000 flights a day."
The "coordination and transfer" regulation establishes the requirements for automatic systems for the exchange of flight data that notify, coordinate and transfer flights between air traffic control units. The goal is to ensure a high level of safety and efficiency of the systems located in the same or in different member states.
This regulation also applies to flight data exchange systems supporting the coordination procedures between air traffic services units and controlling military units, in accordance with the "flexible use of airspace" regulation (EC regulation 2150/2005, Official Journal L342/2005).
The "flight plans" regulation sets out the procedural requirements for flight plans in the pre-flight phase. The goal is to ensure that all parties involved in submitting, modifying, accepting and distributing flight plans - aircraft operators, pilots and air traffic service units - will have the same flight plan before takeoff. It defines the obligations of a centralised flight planning processing and distribution service, provided through the Integrated Initial Flight Plan Processing System (IFPS), established under the authority of Eurocontrol.
The regulation also defines the obligations in the case of flights entering European airspace without a flight plan.
Further information is available on the EU web portal on the Single European Sky.
Source: European Commission.