SubscribeThe SESAR Consortium, consisting of more than 50 company members and associated partners from the aviation industry, in co-operation with EUROCONTROL, has delivered its 2nd report (D2: Air Transport Framework – the Performance Target) under its contract for the SESAR Definition Phase.
The SESAR D2 report states that clear performance targets are necessary to facilitate change to an integrated, European wide, air traffic management system.
"Prepare for three times more capacity, drastically reduce environmental impact, halve ATM costs and improve the safety levels by ten" - those are the main headlines which cascade into a Performance Framework of eleven Key Performance Areas, covering operational performances for the air transport value chain.
Olaf Dlugi, Chairman of the the SESAR Executive Committee said, "The air transport industry needs to prepare for the predicted demand for air transport, which could increase three-fold, compared to today's traffic. Existing ATM fragmentation and current infrastructures cannot cope with such an increase. While keeping pace with the expected growth, future ATM must take into account optimisation of each and every flight. The ATM world has to shift to a performance-based operation."
The Performance Framework will enable European States, Institutions and Regulators in conjunction with the aviation industry to align their targets. Additionally, the Performance Framework is the baseline for aircraft operators, air navigation service providers and airports to work in partnership founded on a shared set of values, priorities, and network interactions.
The fundamental principle of this partnership approach is that the future provision of ATM services must be customer driven.
Guenter Martis, IATA, on behalf of all aircraft operators within the SESAR Consortium commented, "Aircraft operators must be in a position to optimise their operations by setting appropriate priorities when faced with a disruption in the flight schedule - in which case, clear business decisions need to be made - for example to speed-up the take-off of a given flight to ensure passengers' connections. This will only work if all stakeholders involved in the air transport value chain agree on common ATM system performance targets and principles - and that's what has been achieved in D2".
Aircraft operators' priorities will be incorporated into the ATM decision process and will form the baseline for the next step of the SESAR Definition Phase: designing the 2020 Concept of Operation, to be delivered at Milestone 3 by mid 2007.
As an immediate step forward, the SESAR Consortium has highlighted a number of short-term initiatives with the potential to deliver operational savings of approximately 0.5-1 Billion Euros/year. These will be achieved through more efficient use of existing airspace and airport resources, together with noise abatement procedures and techniques, that will improve flight efficiency and help to minimise aviation's impact footprint.
The results of Milestone 2 and the D2 report will be presented to the Air Transport community at the SESAR D2 Stakeholder Forum on 24th January in Geneva.
Toulouse, 8th January 2007
About SESAR and the SESAR Consortium:
The objective of SESAR, Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research, is to define, develop and implement what is required for a new, more capable Europe-wide air traffic management (ATM) system ensuring worldwide interoperability. The project was launched in March 2006, starting with a two-year "SESAR Definition Phase", with a pledge to deliver a harmonized, effective and advanced air traffic management system for Europe by 2020, to support the growth of European economy and meet society's requirements for more mobility and environmental care.
The SESAR Consortium, under a contract being co-financed by the European Commission under the Trans European Networks - Transport scheme and EUROCONTROL, handles the SESAR Definition Phase.
