Weekly review #177 - 30th November

First up, in airport news, O’Hare International Airport received federal sign-off for a $7.1 billion project to replace Terminal 2. Their new 'global terminal' will link domestic and international flights in one location. The project will start with two new satellite concourses, providing about 1.3 million square feet of gate and amenity space.

Next up, skeyes presented a new set of measures to support the transition to wind energy. This would include the removal of the protection zone around Charleroi airport, without compromising the safety and efficiency of air traffic. 

In other news, Adacel opened a new office in Tallinn, Estonia. This office will focus on developing and growing their virtual ATC business, while collaborating with Estonian Air Navigation Services to fully digitise Estonia’s regional airports by 2025.

And finally, DSNA selected SITA’s safety and compliance management solution, SITA Safety Cube, to advance operational safety in French airspace. The system will be deployed across five air route traffic control centers, 70 airports in mainland France, and six overseas airports.

ANSP news

• SESAR Deployment Manager CEO Visited BULATSA - BULATSA Director General, Georgi Peev, and Mariagrazia La Piscopia, CEO of SDM, held an official meeting. The visit is part of the SDM initiative to conduct a series of familiarization visits to ANS providers in Central and East Europe and to promote their achievements in the implementation of technological solutions under SESAR.

• Aviation safety and wind energy - skeyes is strongly committed to sustainable development and actively contributes to the development of wind energy in Belgium. Today, the company presented a new set of measures to support the energy transition, including the removal of the protection zone around Charleroi airport, without compromising the safety and efficiency of air traffic.

• The European Aviation Community united around common goals to implement successful policies for gender inclusion and equality - BULATSA - A forum “Inclusion and Equity in Air Traffic Management” was held in Amsterdam on 16-17 November, hosted by LVNL, EASA and EUROCONTROL.

• EUROCONTROL Member States approve creation of voluntary solidarity funds to support Member States impacted by war - The 41 EUROCONTROL Member States have today entrusted the Organisation with a new task – the creation of voluntary solidarity funds in support of Member States in air traffic crisis situations due to reasons beyond their control.

Airports news

• O’Hare expansion cleared for takeoff - British Aviation Group - O’Hare International Airport got the official federal go-ahead Monday for a $7.1 billion project to replace Terminal 2 with a “global terminal” intended to link domestic and international flights in one location.

• Finavia introduces its winter maintenance beasts at Helsinki Airport | Finavia - The kilometres of runways and apron areas at Helsinki Airport are maintained and kept in good condition throughout the snowy winter. This would not be possible without the huge and powerful special vehicles operated by skilled maintenance professionals.

Market news

• Unique innovation partnership: Austrian Federal Railways and FREQUENTIS collaborate on hanger-based drone operations - A recently signed innovation partnership with Frequentis, to research hangar-based automated drone flights in Austria, will now bring ÖBB another important step towards enhanced safety, economic efficiency, and service availability. This is an important step in advancing the routine implementation of automated drone flights beyond line of sight.

• Major safety boost for French airspace with increased automation - DSNA has selected SITA’s safety and compliance management solution, SITA Safety Cube, to advance operational safety and promote a strong safety culture. The system will be deployed in French airspace spanning five air route traffic control centers, 70 airports in mainland France and six overseas airports.

• Adacel opens new office in Tallinn, Estonia - Adacel Technologies Limited (Adacel), an industry leader in advanced air traffic management solutions and simulation and training systems, is proud to announce the opening of its new office in Tallinn, Estonia.

Context information

• ICAO advocates for decarbonization of aviation at COP 27 - ICAO is fully cognizant of its global responsibilities towards the sustainable future of the international aviation sector, and of the planet. ICAO launched its Assistance, Capacity-building and Training for Sustainable Aviation Fuels (ACT-SAF) programme in June.

Reports and data

• EUROCONTROL Data Snapshot #36 on the road to recovery from COVID-19 - The 36th EUROCONTROL Data Snapshot analyses Europe's recovery from COVID-19 and looks at what flights are still missing compared to 2019 traffic levels.

Research and innovation

• The future of tower air navigation services - Think Research - An article discussing implications of Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) on airport tower operations.

• Towards more efficient departures - NATS organised an open day to demonstrate their recent research results on integrated runway throughput and terminal efficiency - departure operations. The research activities were carried out within the context of the Integrated TMA, Airport and Runway Operations project (PJ.37-W3-ITARO), which is demonstrating on a large scale several airport solutions that have the potential to bring operational and environmental efficiencies.

• Green deal and U-space Digital Sky Demonstrators officially get going - On 24 November, five new Digital Sky Demonstrators officially kicked off. With combined funding to the tune of EUR 45 million from the Connecting Europe Facility between now and 2025, the selected projects aim to accelerate the market uptake of SESAR Solutions for greener aviation and urban air mobility.

UAV and UTM

• Charles Darwin University opens drone research and training centre in Australia’s Northern Territory - Unmanned airspace - Charles Darwin University has opened a new research and training centre for drones in Australia’s Northern Territory. The North Australia Centre for Autonomous Systems supports the university’s involvement in transformative technologies like drones, in the Northern Territory and the wider Asia Pacific region.

• SHEPHERD project draws up a methodology to assess compliance with industry standards - Unmanned airspace - The SHEPHERD project has submitted its first deliverable which is now available for download on the EASA website. The main objective of this project is to build upon the work performed by the AW-Drones project – which identified standards that can potentially be used to demonstrate compliance to regulatory requirements in the drone sector – and complement its analysis by technically assessing the suitability of the standards identified by AW-Drones.

• European Certiflight project to use Galileo data to provide accurate drone positioning - Unmanned airspace - The European Certiflight project has convened its first meeting, bringing together consortium members representing uncrewed traffic management providers, U-space service providers, drone operators, researchers and regulatory interests.

• Israel to trial passenger carrying eVTOLs and cargo drones in controlled urban airspace - Unmanned airspace - The Israel Innovation Authority has announced the start of a 60 million INS second phase of the Israel’s National Drone Initiative, which will examine the use of large cargo and passenger-carrying heavy drone flying in controlled airspace.

• Birth of an industry: Urban air mobility flights to start in 2023 - Unmanned airspace - LIFT is launching a new concept in personal aviation – anyone will be able to learn to fly its semi-autonomous eVTOL aircraft in less than an hour, and then solo pilot the single seat, ultralight vehicle – no pilot’s license required. Under FAA rules, flights are limited to uncongested flyover areas and uncontrolled airspace – so plans are in the works to develop LIFT vertiports along New York City’s many waterfront areas that provide access to the “Class G”, Visual Flight Rules (VFR) corridor that extends up to 1,300 feet around Manhattan. Unlike most eVTOL aircraft in development today, HEXA is already approved to fly under the FAA’s Part 103 rules, and no pilot’s license is required to fly for personal, non-commercial use.

• BlueMark introduces Db120, a “small and powerful” Remote ID add-on - Unmanned airspace - Designed to provide a small, light and powerful transponder, the db120 is small – 48 x 38 x 28 mm – and weighs 25 grams. The transponder has a detection range up to 5 km.

• SESAR RPAS and AI research projects publish material from final dissemination event - Unmanned airspace - Six SESAR JU Exploratory Research projects came together on 3-4 November in Rome, Italy, in a joint event to present the latest developments in promising aviation topics: Drones and Artificial Intelligence (AI). INVIRCAT, URClearED, and SAFELAND shared their research activities and results focused on the RPAS integration in the civil air space, while SafeOPS, MAHALO and ARTIMATION presented their ongoing research within the human – AI teaming in aviation framework.

• TindAIR programme "completes deconfliction urban U-space trails in France" - Unmanned airspace - The SESAR joint undertaking reports that the U-space TindAIR project, coordinated by Innov’ATM, recently completed a series of very large-scale demonstrations in France on urban air mobility (UAM), with a focus on strategic deconfliction. The project has now concluded its demonstration activities, in addition to work on public engagement and acceptance of this future mode of transport and travel.

• Thales HADO to support BVLOS project at LHR - Thales UK is a key player, is looking to answer at one of the world’s busiest international airports.’ HADO® (high-intensity autonomous drone operations) is an ambitious two-year project to deploy and operate a highly-automated 24/7 BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight) drone operation at London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR).