Weekly review #110 - 4th August

After a difficult year, the aviation industry is becoming a very exciting place again. There are constant, exciting developments across the sector, driven by technology that's yet to reveal its full potential. There are so many changes taking place that it can be difficult to keep up. We're here to help. 

Take this news from Australia's Northern Territory, for example. The region's government is looking to update its policies to align with developments in the drone industry. To do so, they're consulting with drone manufacturers and users. It's an encouraging example of public bodies recognising the potential of UAV technology.

Or this report out of Cranfield University, one of the leading institutions responsible for pushing the industry forward. They've recently been awarded for their work on an airspace management project in collaboration with the National Beyond visual line of sight Experimentation Corridor (NBEC) consortium.

There's also exciting news from the Netherlands, who have deployed a cloud solution for flight planning, delivered by R-SYS. Find out more about the increasing use of SaaS in ATM here. 

If you'd like to check out another one of our podcasts, you can use this link. In this podcast, we explore the role of EBAA in ATM, covering everything from the 'why' to the 'how' and 'when'. 

Market news

• HENSOLDT wins contract for German airspace surveillance - HENSOLDT is supplying new radars to the German Armed Forces to modernise their airspace surveillance and build up Ballistic Missile Defence capabilities as part of the "Hughes Air Defence Radar Nachfolgesystem" programme.
• Frequentis awarded contract under RCAF Tactical Control Radar project - Frequentis Canada Limited has been selected by the prime contractor Thales Canada Inc. to provide mission critical communication equipment for its Tactical Control Radar contract with the Department of National Defence. The contract, to support the future mission success of the Royal Canadian Air Force, consists of three new TCR systems, to be located in Bagotville, Quebec, and Cold Lake, Alberta.

Context information

• Slot relief rules for airlines amended and extended - Mobility and Transport - European Commission proposed to amend the Slot Regulation and extended the slot relief rules adopted in February 2021. Relief will therefore be extended to the coming winter scheduling season. Instead of the normal requirement to use at least 80% of a given slot series to retain historic rights in those slots, airlines will only have to use 50% of a given slot series.
• Asia Pacific: ATM recovery goes beyond the visual - Martin Chaloupek, Managing Director Frequentis Singapore, draws our attention to the modernisation of the ATM system and explains what is needed for ATM recovery in Asia Pacific.

Reports and data

• Continued low air traffic in first half year of 2021 due to the corona crisis - skyguide - Skyguide managed and monitored 203 346 flights under instrument flight rules in the first half of 2021. This represents a year-on-year decline of 24.9%, and a decline of 67.8% with respect to the first half of 2019.

Research and innovation

• Shenzhen Airlines conducts breakthrough test flights using Inmarsat’s SB-S connectivity solution on Boeing 737 aircraft - Inmarsat today announced that its SB-S connectivity platform for aviation operations and safety has successfully powered the first ever test of a digital cockpit application on a Boeing 737 aircraft within Chinese domestic civil aviation
• DFS Aviation Services and the Nanjing Research Institute of Electronics Engineering successfully completed an important milestone in their cooperative R&D project - The project takes place in the context of a larger programme aimed at optimising flights from Guangzhou to Nairobi, the efforts of the DFS Group focus on contributing their expertise to ATM operations in general as well as Trajectory Based Operations and Free Route Airspace, in particular, to suggest ATM operational enhancements for the highly complex and dense airspace around Guangzhou.

UAV and UTM

• AURA announces major investment to develop nationwide UAS communications network - Unmanned airspace - AURA Network Systems, which is a developing a US continent-wide private radio link network to enable continuous monitoring and control of UAS for flight operations and data recording, has announced today that it has closed a USD30.9 million Series A funding round.
• Erkelens Law table shows Poland and Croatia as leading early-adopters of U-space - Unmanned airspace - Poland and Croatia are leading the drive in Europe to implement U-space services, based Eurocontrol data (U-Space Implementation Monitoring Rep., Nov. 2020). France and Germany are third and fourth in the table.