On Thursday 7 November, a workshop organised by SESAR Joint Undertaking founding member, Eurocontrol gathered operational experts from more than 25 airlines and other airspace users to discuss how SESAR solutions will create value for them as well as their stronger involvement in future ATM research projects.

The workshop facilitated by Sylviane Wybo (SESAR JU contrbution manager at Eurocontrol), covered key takeaways from the Wave 1 of the SESAR research programme, first-hand impressions from airlines and their expectations for the future, demos of the most relevant solutions and examples of the ones that have been successfully implemented. Furthermore, Franck Ballerini (Eurocontrol) revealed the details of a call for tender, which will be launched over the coming weeks, aiming to attract airlines to participate in the Wave 2 projects.

Many contributions from the audience highlighted the importance of the airspace users participation in the development of the solutions and the need for fast implementation after validation.

Airlines and airspace users have been very important partners in several SESAR Wave 1 projects. I was impressed by the number of research solutions bringing tangible benefits to airlines and the network and it is pleasing to hear how much airspace users are recognising this. However, they are also asking for faster deployment of the priority solutions and that will be our focus in the coming months and years. This type of workshop helps to strengthen and extend the relationships with airspace users and will encourage their participation in solutions of strategic importance in the SESAR Wave 2 projects.

Eric Nantier (SWISS International Airlines) discussed the research projects from an airline perspective stressing that airlines need to be involved from the very beginning so their requirements and input are taken into consideration and that we need make sure that mature solutions are quickly moved into deployment. Laurent Renou shared Air France’s views on the priority solutions, processes and methodology improvements and expectations from Wave 2 and Wave 3 projects.

In addition, Eric Carpentier (Eurocontrol Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre) provided insights on the successful implementation of the ATM Portal, while research experts in network management (Gérard Mavoian), airport (Alan Marsden) and advanced traffic services (Eric Hoffman) gave a status update on research projects relevant for airspace users. This included demos on User Driven Prioritisation process (UDPP); Flight Planning Services; Network Collaborative Advanced Planning (CAP) Tool; RECAT, Time Based Separation (TBS) with Enhanced Approach Procedures; Collaborative Decision Making for Regional Airports; and Improved Parallel Approaches with Performance-Based Navigation (PBN).