Global ATM enters a new age - and the cost benefit potential is immense

The potential for enhancing airspace efficiency is immense. In 2013 the direct cost of delays to US airlines was estimated at USD8.1 billion - although only a third of this was directly ATM related. The flow-on effect of delays to passengers and the overall US economy was far worse, estimated in 2010 at close to USD35 billion.

Now, global air traffic management (ATM) is gathering speed towards a new age. The traditional system of terrestrial radar, beacon following and controller-centric services is in the process of being replaced.

Succeeding the old system is a new approach that fuses satellite surveillance, online connectivity and information technology to provide more accurate positioning and monitoring, along with advances in ground-based systems, digital communications and avionics.

Ideally this leads to a more efficient and flexible system, using an approach that shares the workload across pilots and air traffic controllers as well as information sharing between all parties across the different stages of a flight. A modern ATM system promises improvements in safety, airspace capacity, pilot and controller awareness, aircraft tracking and monitoring, while lowering the cost of service provision for ANSPs and airspace users.

The ultimate goal is to develop a seamless global system that allows aircraft to fly the shortest and safest routes, minimising delays, reducing aircraft noise at airports, cutting fuel use in the air and on the ground as well as lowering emissions.

In Europe, with its tighter but more fragmented airspace, ATM inefficiency cost airlines between EUR4.5 billion and EUR8 billion in 2013. The Single European Sky (SES) programme, redrawing the continent's airspace map, is expected to generate around EUR3 billion in efficiency enhancements by 2030 by eliminating airspace based on national boundaries and the redundant system infrastructure.

Moving to a modern ATM system via SESAR - the technological side of SES - is estimated to increase these savings by another EUR3 billion p/a by cutting enroute delays, route extensions, airport delays, inefficient holding and sequencing and waiting during taxi out.

Change is indeed coming, but balanced against the benefits of modernisation are the mounting costs of implementation. ATM infrastructure is complex and interdependent, with systems on the ground, on board aircraft and in space. Delays or failures in one area can have serious knock-on effects. The two widest ranging and highest profile ATM reform efforts - NextGen and SESAR - are running late and over budget.

The FAA's initial estimates for NextGen implementation were USD15 billion-USD22 billion by 2025, with another USD15 billion-18 billion to be spent on avionics by aircraft operators to make the most of the new technology. Given the projected USD182 billion benefit to US economy and the USD4 billion-5 billion p/a in direct benefits for airlines and airports, this seemed a paltry amount.

A decade into NextGen and things are not going to plan. The FAA spent 2007 to 2011 on a drip feed of temporary funding extensions, stalling some NextGen deployment efforts. Technology problems and other issues have mounted. As a result, acquisition costs have already blown out by more than USD8 billion and the projected benefits had been cut back to about USD133 billion.

Several key NextGen initiatives have been delivered, although some have come more than five years late. The FAA estimated in 2014 that the cost of NextGen has climbed to USD39 billion through to 2020 and some estimates have put the cost at a staggering USD160 billion.

Europe's experience with SES and SESAR is a similar story, with delays, complications and cost overruns. Europe's airspace reform programme is estimated to cost EUR30 billion (USD34 billion), making it the EU's single largest R&D programme. Airspace users are expected to directly and indirectly contribute EUR23 billion to the funding needed to deliver SESAR, but this commitment could easily increase.

The introduction of SES is better than a decade behind schedule - primarily for political and social reasons - and the SESAR Joint Undertaking technology project estimates its objective of tripling airspace capacity while halving unit costs will not occur until 2024, or later.

Alongside the US and European efforts are technologically ambitious efforts to transition to satellite-based augmentation systems allowing for greater flight precision and safety. High precision systems are being introduced with China's COMPASS, India's GAGAN, Japan's MSAS, and Russia's SDCM.

While these reforms are ongoing, other priorities and opportunities have emerged. Flight tracking, drones and cybersecurity are among the highest profile and of most immediate concern, but trends like the push towards ATM privatisation and the merger of civil and military control are gathering momentum.

Flight tracking will become a new global standard after shockwaves were sent through the ATM sector with the crash of Air France Flight 447. That was in 2009, sadly followed by Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in 2014. The aviation sector has decided that aircraft simply vanishing over oceanic areas - where there is no radar coverage and precious little other monitoring - is something that it can no longer tolerate.

In 2014, ICAO met with ANSPs, states, airlines, service providers, manufacturers and industry bodies to devise a solution. The answer came in the form of a global 15-minute flight tracking standard. Civil airliners operating outside of traditional surveillance will broadcast positioning and other information, providing a better picture of their tracks when they are in remote/oceanic areas.

For airlines and ANSPs, the key to the ICAO recommendation was that it was performance-based, rather than prescriptive. The new standard - due to be adopted in Nov-2015 to become implemented by Nov-2016 - permits the use of a wide variety of existing and new technologies for aircraft tracking, flexibility and mitigating against the need for costly new systems.

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS), also known as drones, have also emerged one of the most disruptive technologies in aviation over the past few years. The explosion in UAS popularity is something the ATM sector had not been prepared to deal with. The idea of thousands of unlicensed drones flown by untrained operators in commercial air corridors is a nightmare scenario for ANSPs and aviation safety authorities.

The industry has tremendous commercial potential. The market is valued at more than USD5 billion, a figure that is expected to triple over the next 10 years and efforts to incorporate civil drones seamlessly, efficiently and safely into global ATM are accelerating.

However, new regulation cannot come fast enough for many. The FAA in particular has come under criticism for dragging its feet on new drone rules. ANSPs and other authorities won't back down on safety matters though, and would rather be seen to be too slow on drone regulation, rather than not pay enough attention to safety.

Cyber security continues to raise concerns. ATM is dependent on technology and information exchange and with the introduction of the satellite and online revolution, it is only becoming more so. As a result, cybersecurity is now a growing concern to ANSPs and national aviation authorities. Repeated incidents, including a recent cyber attack that grounded flights at LOT Polish Airlines, have shown that ATM systems are vulnerable to cyber attacks and that stronger measures are needed in this area.

New global standards for aviation cyber security have been developed and are being rolled out. While significant steps have been taken, security control weaknesses remain in ATM systems and networks, threatening the safety and security. The US Government Accountability Office's report on ATM cyber security found the FAA's Air Traffic Organisation lacks a clear set of goals, objectives, and performance measures around which it can organise its information security programme for ATM systems.

Given the global nature of the threat and the increasingly interconnected nature of ATM systems it is essential to develop collaborative approaches to address aviation cyber security.

The harmonisation of the management of civil and defence aircraft has become an increasing concern. According to ICAO, around 40% of all controlled airspace globally is prohibited to civil operation or under military control. This means that civil airliners have to fly circuitous routes around large areas of airspace that are off limits, adding length and time to flights, increasing cost for airlines and adding delays for everyone.

Some of the world's fastest growing aviation markets are also those that are the most subject to military control. In China nearly 80% of airspace is under military control, compared to around 15% in the US and less than 10% in the EU. As a result, commercial air traffic is canalised into a limited number of increasingly congested air corridors. This has led to building delays for Chinese travellers, with the little available airspace at saturation.

In the UAE around 50%-55% of airspace is off-limits to commercial flights. Given the importance of aviation to the UAE's economy and development, any threat to its sustainability is taken very seriously.

To overcome this, there is increasing cooperation between military and civil ANSPs. Flexible use of airspace, permanent military-civil liaisons and ATM systems that offer interoperability between civil and military operators has produced compelling results: new air corridors, joint use of airspace and timed commercial flights through military controlled airspace have allowed cuts of 50-75nm to flight routes.

Beyond co-operation, a true joint civil-military concept of operations is an emerging trend in airspace management. Australia's new system will bring civil and military ATM together, a first globally. Other countries are looking at similar systems.

Radar suppliers FREQUENTIS and Thales have also recognised the potential for joint systems, announcing a new primary surveillance system that will serve both civil and military needs.

There is also a push to privatisation. The ATM sector is in transition from a government-controlled sector to a liberalised and more competitive operating environment. Historically, ANSPs have been run either as a specialised organisation within a government department or as a separate branch of government.

Increasingly though, new models are being adopted. Since the mid-1990s, the number of ANSPs that have been privatised or corporatised has moved from a bare handful - including major ANSPs such as NAV CANADA, Airways New Zealand, NATS, Airservices Australia and DFS Germany - to better than 50.

Various models are utilised, the most common being a state corporation. Not for profit corporate models, such as at NAV CANADA, and for profit corporations under government controlled charging regulations, such as NATS, are becoming more prevalent. Public-private partnership models and completely private ANSPs are less common but are being used frequently. Up for debate at the moment are plans to corporatese the ATM function of the FAA. A proposal has been made to corporatise the agency's Air Traffic Organisation, which controls more traffic than any other ANSP globally, to improve its efficiency and shift it to user-fee based funding, to provide better financing. Even if the legislation fails to pass, it shows a sea change in the attitudes towards privatised ATM.

There is no perfect solution but things are getting better. Given that somewhere between half and two thirds of air traffic delays are out of the hands of ANSPs, even a perfect ATM system is never going to eliminate delays. Too much is dependent on factors outside of the control of the sector. This does not mean that efforts at reform should not be strengthened.

ATM systems as they stand at the moment are outdated and based on modalities that were first introduced in the days when it was common to use fires in oil drums to guide pilots. What is replacing this is complicated and expensive, and being delivered late and over-budget. But, it is being delivered and the pace of change and the benefits of implementation are accelerating.

ATM reform is a not a nice to have luxury; it is a necessity. Global aircraft movements are projected to double by 2030, with nearly seven billion passengers flying every year, taking nearly 52 million flights.

The current system simply cannot deal with this sort of congestion. Despite the cost and the delays, ATM must enter this new age or risk grinding to a halt.