European aviation faces many challenges, and global interoperability is high on the list alongside drones, regional fragmentation, demographic change, the environment, etc., said European Commission’s Henrik Hololei in his keynote during SESAR’s ‘Towards global interoperability’ session on day one of the World ATM Conference in Spain. Citing the European Aviation Strategy, he called for holistic approaches and strengthened partnerships to create synergies, share risks, pool resources and promote scientific cooperation, with the Single European Sky, ATM Masterplan and developments in the US and ICAO signposting the way forward.   

“We have a collective responsibility to make sure aviation systems work,” challenged SESAR JU’s Florian Guillermet. The simplicity of the statement belies the complexity of the task at hand. Today, we have de facto standards emanating from market or technological leadership, but SESAR’s vision is to see more proactive modernisation of the ATM ecosystem shaping the technical, legal and political landscape for best-in-class standards to prevail. A coherent European response is SESAR’s primary goal, but alignment with global developments is critical to any progress on global interoperability.

While global interoperability is indeed everyone’s responsibility, according to Teri Bristol of the US Federal Aviation Administration. “There are things that we can all do locally and regionally to ensure seamless boundaries and interoperable systems,” she added, offering examples of US efforts to boost data sharing across the States and beyond to the Caribbean.

Massimo Garbini of the SESAR Deployment Manager wanted clarification on what ‘global interoperability’ really means, because it is not about working the same way everywhere, nor harmonising every technology or process. Progress is inevitable, he suggested, and Europe needs to be on the positive side of future developments. Thanks to SESAR, Europe already has a good starting point. The key now is to forge ahead and pursue good options (not necessarily perfect ones) and derive what should be harmonised from stakeholder and industry requirements – the users.

Eurocontrol’s Philippe Merlo agreed that development in the aviation sector is constant and inevitable, and efforts towards harmonisation and standards are a natural outcome of aircraft needing to be able to fly everywhere.  A common worldwide aviation safety culture is needed which leaves no-one behind, he said, and ICAO is the obvious worldwide custodian of this. “ATM interoperability is not easy to master,” he said, so we have to pull together in key technical and operational fields like navigation which are all interconnected.

IATA’s Rob Eagles echoed the need to work closer together, stressing the importance of performance-based standards and common technology certification (e.g. ADS-B) in harmonisation and interoperability. He said it is absolutely critical for safety, especially as unmanned flights increase, and that the sector needs to learn from past mistakes in order to move forward.

The moderator, David Batchelor, addressed the risk of countries being left behind to ICAO’s Richard Macfarlane who revealed that a planned revamp of his organisation’s six-year-old Global Air Navigation Plan (GANP) would factor in this possibility by creating a dual-track harmonisation-standardisation approach. The revision would include compulsory minimum standards or Basic Building Blocks for all ICAO members and optional targets led by the “foremost aviation countries” for others to work towards. A comprehensive set of implementation tools, including the business case, is also envisioned.  

The question and answer segment of the session was dominated by responses to the “near and present” threat of cyberattack on the aviation system, and how to deal with drone proliferation. Both of these topics are on ICAO’s radar, according to Macfarlane, and a summit is planned to address them directly. All panellists called for faster responses to the threats. Philippe Merlo said cyberattacks are not exclusive to aviation, and that best practices from the banking sector, for example, could prevent unnecessary “reinvention of the wheel”.