The SESAR Joint Undertaking joined European and international partners at the 13th Air Navigation Conference of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) between 9-19 October in Montreal. Over the course of the 10 days, the JU and its members contributed to discussions, which focused on the major transformation taking place in aviation today.

“Aviation today is on the brink of some major transformations,” the ICAO Council President Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu declared in his keynote conference remarks. “This is reflected in the fantastic growth in aircraft passenger and cargo traffic volumes that are poised to more than double by 2035, the increasing deployment of drone technology, the launch of autonomous, suborbital, and supersonic activities, as well as other innovations such as artificial intelligence and block chain technologies.” 

“Accordingly,” he commented, “our goal for the next two weeks is to define our collective vision of a safe, interoperable, seamless and global civil air traffic management system for the 21st century.” 

In support of this ambition, the SESAR JU was proud to contribute actively alongside European states, the European Commission, Eurocontrol, EASA, ECAC and EUROCAE to the preparations and coordinated presentations of the 13 working papers and 7 information papers that were presented by Europe at the conference. These offer Europe’s experience and insights into some pivotal areas of aviation and air traffic management, such as civil-military coordination, trajectory-based operations, cyber security, network management, among others. A paper was also submitted to the Conference on the newly published NextGen/SESAR State of Harmonisation document.

Meanwhile, the SESAR JU joined the European Commission in bilateral discussions with a number of key international partners, including the United States, China and Australia.

SESAR member manufacturers also participated at the conference, providing updates on their latest innovations, including their contributions to SESAR.

Principal papers presented by Europe

Civil/military cooperation in Europe
https://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf13/Documents/WP/wp_049_en.pdf

Strengthening concepts for cyber security in aviation
https://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf13/Documents/WP/wp_042_en.pdf

Proposals for the further development of the Global Air Navigation Plan
https://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf13/Documents/WP/wp_035_en.pdf

Network management
https://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf13/Documents/WP/wp_040_en.pdf

Total airport management
https://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf13/Documents/WP/wp_036_en.pdf

Trajectory-based operations
https://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf13/Documents/WP/wp_038_en.pdf

Non-segregated UAS (Unmanned aircraft systems) operations
https://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf13/Documents/WP/wp_041_en.pdf

Emerging issues
https://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf13/Documents/WP/wp_046_en.pdf

Global Aviation Safety Plan (GASP) and data-driven decision-making
https://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf13/Documents/WP/wp_043_en.pdf

Increasing the efficiency of Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme (USOAP) https://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf13/Documents/WP/wp_044_en.pdf

SESAR member presentations

Resilient architectures: enhancing ATM business continuity (Indra)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=IB__fq7JTaM

Air traffic management new challenges (Leonardo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CBzSEhxAjI

Modernisation of the Air Navigation Systems (Thales)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkd3eRwEVyY

Implementation of autonomous distress tracking and post flight localisation & recovery components (Airbus)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZuFfAyh5BM

Read the ICAO press release:

https://www.icao.int/Newsroom/Pages/Countries-converge-to-plan-tremendous-modernization-in-global-air-transport-at-13th-ICAO-Air-Navigation-Conference.aspx