Regional Updates

ASPAC

Seamless Air Traffic Management

Asia-Pacific is the world’s fastest growing aviation market with 11.6 million passengers carried by the region’s airlines in 2010. This growth is forecast to continue despite the looming slowdown of global activity.
Over the last two years there has been a significant level of debate in the region about the need for a specific program dedicated to ensure air traffic management (ATM) infrastructure development is able to manage the future air traffic demand. This debate, which has been stimulated by airlines in the region, has matured to the point where ICAO has established the Asia-Pacific Seamless ATM Planning Group. It is undeniable that the economic benefits of increased aviation activity will be reduced unless the growth of infrastructure keeps pace with the increasing demand.

While preparation for this growth is evidenced by the considerable projected capital expenditure in airport infrastructure, there is no such program for ATM.

The IATA Seamless Asia-Pacific ATM will link the supply chain for ATM, enabling the maximum benefits from the capital investments to be obtained, as well as providing significant collateral benefits to society as a whole.

But an important difference in Asia-Pacific is the agreement to pursue “seamless ATM” rather than a “single sky”.

The first meeting of the planning group will take place early next year and the group will address issues such as the definition of “seamlessness”, appropriate targets for the region and also the fundamental building blocks of a seamless ATM roadmap.

Airlines International article - seamless Asian Sky

For more information, contact aspacsoi@iata.org

 

Manila Airport

In the Philippines, new airlines and rising travel demand have strained the existing facilities at Manila airport.
To help resolve this issue IATA established the Operational Safety and Capacity Enhancement Team (OSCET) at Manila to drive airport safety enhancements and capacity improvements through stakeholder collaboration. The first priority was to ensure existing infrastructure capacity is being used to the fullest through the implementation of procedural changes and simple infrastructure improvements.

In order to do this it was agreed that further effort is needed to improve runway performance and air traffic sequencing by involving both ATC’s and aircrew in an awareness program.
The agreement reached will see the runway occupancy times continually assessed for improvement, airline best practice procedures will be develop and ATC speed control procedures will be implemented in early January.

Additionally, runway entry/exit points are under review to reduce choke points which restrict efficient use of the runway.

Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) Implementation

IATA has been closely involved with the successful introduction of RVSM on 17 November for the Bay of Bengal, India and Afghanistan flow through to Europe. The implementation was successful with a few minor issues to be resolved between states. The next phase of improvement to be addressed in December 2011 is the implementation of 50nm longitudinal separations on these flows. These two initiatives will deliver an expected 67% increase in capacity.

North Asia

IATA, along with some Operations Committee and other airline representatives visited the Civil Aviation University of China (CAUC), Civil Aviation Management Institute of China (CAMIC), Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), Air Traffic Management Bureau (ATMB), SATCCO and Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department (HKCAD), to discuss the industry’s challenging issues and planning the following cooperation. Some key outcomes included the following:

CAUC

• Requested IATA to co-host a high level international seminar on Safety Management Systems and Fatigue Risk Management Systems (FRMS) at the CAUC
• IATA to bring experts to CAUC to introduce the latest development on ATM including SESAR

CAMIC

• IATA and CAMIC will map out the implementation plan for next 3-4 years on fuel conservation and FRMS

CAAC

• CAAC suggested to co-host a runway safety workshop with IATA in 2012
  

ATMB

• ATMB to cooperate with IATA on traffic flow management, and international information exchange
  

SATCCO

• SATCCO to cooperate with IATA on initiatives like, airspace restructuring, capacity/efficiency study, general aviation management and information exchange
  

HKCAD

• HKCAD ATM construction program will be complete on time, the new ATC automation system will be functioning by 2013

Africa

Safety in Africa

Until 30 November, overall African safety (Western-built Jet Hull Losses per Million Sectors) performance is 42 % better. Also, Africa IOSA-members had 0 accidents (until 30 Nov) in 2011. This is a great achievement for Africa.  

The final Africa workshop in support of the Implementation Program for Safety Operations in Africa (IPSOA) Flight Data Analysis (FDA) program was held in Johannesburg with seven out of the nine member airlines (Ethiopian Airlines, Kenya Airways, Mozambique Airlines, Precision Air, Air Zimbabwe, Air Malawi, SA Airlink, Air Burkina & Air Nigeria) in attendance. This workshop provided attendees with an opportunity to evaluate their own achievements in terms of developing a safety culture whereby four of the members at program launch had no FDA at all while the other five members were hardly off the ground.

The objective of the three year project which ends on 31 December, 2011 is to ensure the majority of IPSOA members reach the green category of maturity as per project metrics which ran from red to orange to green to platinum. Six members achieved the goal (green) with three of the six reaching green/platinum.

The workshop was further used to introduce the new GSIC Flight Data eXchange (FDX) program, which is a unique, continent-wide flight data safety program providing participants with online access to more than 50 automated runway and airport specific safety analysis reports.  The FDX program will be launched by the end of 2011 and already has commitments from more than 50 IATA member carriers.

Middle East and North Africa

United Arab Emirates Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) Implementation Plan

As a result of the ICAO/IATA Global PBN Go-team visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) finalized the revision of their national PBN implementation plan.
All recommendations from the ICAO/IATA Global PBN Go-team were considered and reflected in the new PBN implementation plan.

There were four main areas identified during the evaluation:

• Assessment of the existing PBN Operational Approval process
• Assessment of the existing Airspace concept
• Assessment of current approach procedure implementation and design
• Assessment of existing PBN training.

Benefits for airlines will not be limited to a global standardized PBN operational approval process and more efficient PBN procedures, but also to the incorporation of the Flexible Use of Airspace concept to the UAE.

Over one half of UAE airspace is military including a large restricted area to the south of Abu Dhabi. The PBN Go-team recommended that the military consider releasing upper levels in all transit corridors within military restricted airspace. As a result, the UAE authorities agreed to incorporate the Flexible Use of Airspace into the UAE Airspace Restructuring Project.

Middle East Airspace User & Stakeholder Engagement (MEAUSE)

The second MEAUSE conference, held in Amman on 21-22 Nov. 2011, brought together aviation professionals from airlines, air navigation service providers (ANSPs), airports, and regulators, and included interactive discussions on various topics including the deliverables of the MEAUSE initiative. Several panel discussions and presentations highlighted stakeholders’ collaboration initiatives, such as Airport Collaborative Decision Making (CDM), Middle East Regional Airspace Review (MIDRAR) Project, and best practices of airline-ANSP engagement.

IATA has been supporting and leading work under the MEAUSE initiative since its foundation in November 2010, and will continue to do so to ensure that MEAUSE becomes a regional platform through which airlines, ANSPs, and airports find ways to jointly agree on regional and national initiatives, ensuring the harmonization and the alignment of plans and investments in the region.

Europe

Euro-Russia Aviation Summit in St. Petersburg

On 12 October 2011, IATA participated in the Euro-Russia Aviation Summit in St. Petersburg. IATA’s presentation focused on security topics such as cargo security and Checkpoint of the Future. There are clear messages to support the concepts from EU and Russia.
The Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation Igor Levitin confirmed his strong support for making IOSA registration mandatory for all Russian carriers, beginning with those flying internationally.
Infrastructure issues in Russia were also under focus and the implementation of Reduced Vertical Separation Minima that started on 17 November 2011 was a major step for Russia. IATA continues to support both safe and efficient operations in the region.

Latin America and the Caribbean

ALTA-IATA Trend Sharing Program

The Latin American Airline Association (ALTA) and IATA signed into effect the ALTA-IATA Trend Sharing Program (AITSP), a joint effort to analyze, track and improve safety risks in the region while focusing resources on the key areas of concern. The AITSP was signed by ALTA Executive Director Alex De Gunten, and IATA Director General and CEO Tony Tyler during ALTA's 8th Annual Airline Leaders Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which was attended by more than 500 leaders in the aviation industry. The scope of the AITSP includes identifying opportunities for improvement, promoting the exchange of best practices and providing the ability to compare performance versus the rest of the industry. In conjunction with ALTA, we are taking steps to further help curtail the region's most critical safety concerns, such as runway excursions.