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Analysis
SESAR progress but budget remains a worry
Six months into the work programme of the SESAR Joint Undertaking, about 70 per cent of the research projects are underway.
“The work is up and running, and the money is streaming,” says Eurocontrol director of Cooperative Network Design (CND) Bo Redeborn. “We intend to protect our commitment to funding SESAR as long as we can, but if our budget continues to shrink, we may not able to stick to that.” Budget decisions of this magnitude are made by Eurocontrol’s Provisional Council and governing board. Eurocontrol will contribute Eur60-70 million in 2009, mainly in staff and some work programmes. The agency expects to inject more money as the programme nears the end of the current Development Phase.
The projects cover operational activities including en route, terminal and airports; system development including aircraft systems and ATM network design; system wide information management (SWIM); and transversal activities. The programme cost of Eur2.1 billion will be spread across some 300 projects over the next eight years, split three ways between the Commission, Eurocontrol and industry partners.
Eurocontrol Deputy Director for Sesar Contribution Bernard Mailler says: “We will be involved in facilitating implementation in the Deployment Phase, through the Network Development and Single European Sky pillars of CND. At this point in time, we expect to have a key role to play in the natural continuity of the programme’s lifecycle.”
Eurocontrol has set up a remote Programme Support Office (SPO) as part of its in-kind contribution. Located at the SESAR JU premises, some 15 Eurocontrol staff provide support on architectural issues, as well as IT infrastructure and administrative work. Eurocontrol is also involved in transversal issues such as safety, security, environment and human resources.
SESAR work is absorbing the lion’s share of European ATM research funds, including most of Eurocontrol’s research resources. Yet the Eur2.1 billion development programme is centred largely on existing technology, and capabilities of the current airline fleet. It is this aspect that is raising questions over progress in the short term. “The airlines are keen on having us continue flight efficiency measures,” says Redeborn. “We are making 150 route changes again this year, like last year, to shorten routes. We are introducing continuous descent approaches (CDAs) and climb out procedures. We are introducing pieces of free route airspace in several states. There are plenty of small things happening that actually improve the performance of the system.” He says the tangible improvements in the next one to two years are not as a result of SESAR, but are consistent with the SESAR Master Plan and prerequisites for future deliverables.
“We have been trying to do flight efficiency initiatives earlier that previously planned, while capacity enhancement issues we have been trying to postpone. Capacity is reasonably well in balance right now, so it is a great opportunity to introduce flight efficiency measures like free route airspace and CDAs.”
Eurocontrol signed a contract with SITA for a pan-European communications network service (PENS) at the end of October to support seamless exchange of voice and data communications between navigation service providers. “PENS changes the whole communications network of ground-ground communications, and is the first step for system wide information management,” says Redeborn. Other programmes include the development of new digital aeronautical information formats like AIXM version 5.1 to support digital NOTAM in a SWIM environment, and uplink data to the flight deck.
Meanwhile, Eurocontrol is gearing up for a bigger role in the deployment phase of SESAR. “We will propose to the Provisional Council in December 2009 to reform the structure of Eurocontrol to make a clearer distinction of what we do on the regulatory side, and our work for airspace users and service provision. It is likely we will restructure in 2010 to be in line with IP1 [SESAR Implementation Phase 1] and prepare to support the deployment of SESAR when IP2 is ready to deliver.”
In the interim, the SESAR work programme needs to push for early benefits if it is to meet some of its longer term objectives. It needs to pay attention to output, even during the current development phase.
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