The ripples of the COVID-19 pandemic start causing visible reactions by Air Navigation Services Providers (ANSPs). One of the first public reaction was when DFS announced new labour agreements last month - an expected move as salaries are the largest part of any ANSP's cost structure.
As it is not yet possible to know for how long the traffic will be so low and how the restart will look like, the next expected step is to reduce other costs. Running projects are postponed and some new projects are cancelled. One of the first cancellations we detected is the audio and video recording call for tenders by NAV Portugal. The cancellation notice explicitly mentions COVID-19 as the cause. The project has been cancelled by the board and while it will likely be re-activated at some stage, the call for tenders is nevertheless cancelled and not extended.
Munich Airport also cancelled their A-SMGCS project - a nice one that included handwriting recognition and voice control as options. It is not clear if this is caused by the COVID-19, though.
Are these a isolated cases or the start of a trend? We keep following the situation closely and will report again when trends will become more visible. Subscribe to our newsletter to not miss updates on this and more.
