Weekly review #160 - 27th July

Picture of Vincent Lambercy
Posted by Vincent Lambercy

First up, it's exciting news for landing systems as DFS, the German air navigation service provider, started the use of the GBAS precision landing system for poor weather conditions at Frankfurt Airport. This is the first system of its kind in the world. GBAS is the term used to describe navigation by satellite, but combined with a ground-based supplementary, or augmentation system. Only this combination gives the accuracy required for precision landings.

 

Next, ever thought about how air traffic management would work in space? Well, Startical has received support from European Union to bring air traffic management to space in a pioneering project. The innovative proposal of Startical, created by Indra and ENAIRE, to launch a constellation of small satellites to improve air traffic management (ATM) has received significant backing from the European Commission, which will support the development of a key demonstrator to speed up the deployment of the solution. 

 

In market news, ERA has successfully passed the Site Acceptance Test (SAT) and thus completed the installation of a new ADS-B system covering the Domestic Airspace of the Republic of Fiji. The Czech system will help to ensure the safety of air traffic in a country on the exact opposite side of the Globe.

 

Finally, Microsoft has officially launched Project AirSim this week at the Farnborough International Air Show, where it is available in limited preview for interested customers. The company reports Project AirSim as a new platform running on Microsoft Azure to safely build, train, and test autonomous aircraft through high-fidelity simulation.

ANSP news

Airports news

Market news

Context information

Reports and data

  • DFS records up to 20 percent more traffic - Summer 2022 brings a sharp increase in air traffic volumes in German airspace. This can be attributed to the general increase in traffic in Europe. The war in Ukraine, shifts in traffic as well as military air traffic are also contributing to the increase.
  • Queen Alia International Airport numbers - Queen Alia International Airport registered 31,547 aircraft movements - representing 17.0% decline, compared with H1 2019. Meanwhile, during the month of June, QAIA handled 6,211 ACM, increase of 17.1% as opposed to June 2019.
  • Final data released: Top 20 busiest airports confirmed - ACI World - 2021 global aircraft movements are close to 74 million, representing a gain of 18.7% from 2020 results or -28.2% versus 2019. The top 20 airports, representing 12% of global traffic (8.7 million movements), witnessed a gain of 27.9% from their 2020 results or a drop of 15.7% vis-à-vis their 2019 results (10.3 million in 2019).

Research and innovation

  • UK public dialogue report outlines emerging aviation technologies - A new public dialogue report and additional funding for social research were announced 20 July by the Future Flight Challenge at UK Research and Innovation which will allow the UK to better understand how more integrated aviation systems and technologies might bring about a range of social and economic benefits to the UK.

UAV and UTM