Weekly Review #199 - FAA activates new east coast routes

Picture of Vincent Lambercy
Posted by Vincent Lambercy

First, we have news from the United States, with the FAA gearing up for the busy summer season. The authority has activated a total of 169 routes along the east coast, meaning passengers can make more direct flights and airlines can save fuel. In fact, the routes will shave off 40,000 miles and 6,000 minutes of travel time each year as well as help prevent delays. And when adverse weather conditions occur, controllers will have more flexibility.

Next up, we have news of a new national engagement approach from Australia. Airservices Australia drafed a new national Community Engagement Standard, outlining how it plans to boost timely, meaningful and transparent engagement with communities and the aviation industry on flight path and airspace change proposals. And it's asking the public to have its say. 'A key element of the Standard is engaging early with communities, providing transparency around decision-making and allowing adequate time for community stakeholders to have an input into those decisions,’ Airservices Australia Chief Executive Officer Jason Harfield said.

 

In news from the UK, Liverpool John Lennon airport will modernise its voice communications with Frequentis providing Air Traffic Control Services Ltd. two voice
communication systems. 'We chose the Frequentis VCS 3020X and X10 VCS based on our previous experience with the company’s systems and their experience in the market, delivering to a number of other UK airports,' said Paul Staples, Director of Airport Operations at Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

 

And last but not least, we have another episode of our podcast Radar Contact for you. This week, we sit down with Klaus Meier of Skyguide to discuss virtual centres.

 

ANSP news

Market news

Context information

Reports and data

Research and innovation

  • Enhanced Global Air Traffic Efficiency Is on the Horizon - MITRE - A global initiative is underway to enhance air traffic management worldwide. At MITRE, we’re lending our aviation expertise, technical know-how, and state-of-the-art laboratory capabilities to the effort.
  • Solution to increase ATCO flexibility passes maturity assessment - The SESAR solution “Increased Flexibility in ATCO Validations” explores ways to more flexibly deploy air traffic controllers to specific parts of en-route airspace, sectors and working positions. The tools and procedures developed, which are tailored to reduce the need for controllers to have local knowledge of a sector, have now reached V2 maturity. This is an important milestone on the way to deployment. The solution is part of the SESAR project FALCO.
  • A paradigm change for aircraft separations on departure - NATS Blog - At today’s busy airports, every second counts. When punctuality is key and the value of departure slots is counted in millions of pounds, a little delay can add up to a large economic and environmental cost for airport operators, airlines, and passenger inconvenience.

UAV and UTM

  • ICAO AAM Study Group meets to discuss harmonised standards with international agencies - Unmanned airspace - The first ICAO Advanced Air Mobility Study Group which took place this week in Montreal, discussed a coordination and cooperation framework for interaction between ICAO and other Standards Making Organizations related to AAM. Among participants EUROCAE participated to help develop “consistent procedures, formulated through consensus standards and uniform, convergent policies for AAM operations and traffic management,” posts the agency which aims to mitigate concerns and instill public confidence while expediting AAM technology’s acceptance and implementation.