NAV CANADA joins the iTEC Alliance to foster more efficient and sustainable aviation

• iTEC, one of the Single European Sky pillars, will become a global alliance striving to improve air traffic management.

• NAV CANADA, which manages the second-largest airspace in the world, will adopt the iTEC SkyNex system, which is being deployed in some of the world’s most complex and busiest skies, including those of Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Lithuania. With this Alliance, the partners of iTEC manage an airspace covering 26 million square kilometers.

• With NAV CANADA’s entry into the Alliance, the iTEC SkyNex system will be extended to a total of 27 control centers in eight countries to provide a common technology that supports more sustainable aviation with fewer emissions.

• Aircraft will be able to cross half of the globe with iTEC SkyNex as the system managing their flights

NAV CANADA is joining the iTEC Alliance and gives further momentum to an initiative that brings together some of the world’s leading air navigation service providers. With this important partnership, iTEC has reached beyond the European borders for the first time and continues its cooperative venture to create a more efficient and environment-friendly generation of air traffic management systems.

The signing took place today at the Airspace World event in Geneva which has brought together some of the main players in air traffic management ecosystem. Mark Cooper, Vice-President and Chief Technology and Information Officer on behalf of NAV CANADA, and the main representatives of the iTEC Alliance, Dirk Mahns, DFS COO and Chairman of iTEC Board; Kuldeep Gharatya, NATS Technical Services Director; Laura Garcés, ENAIRE Deputy Director ANS; Jan-Gunnar Pedersen, Avinor ANS CEO; Magdalena Jaworska-Maćkowiak, PANSA President; Marlou Banning, LVNL CFO; Saulius Batavičius, Oro Navigacija CEO; and Javier Ruano, Indra’s ATM General Director, signed the agreement. 

With this settlement, cooperation between Europe and North America will be reinforced, and global air traffic will reach new levels of efficiency thanks to a more collaborative management. This partnership also brings the possibility of operating transoceanic flights using the same technology from start to finish, thereby facilitating smoother traffic management across both sides of the world’s busiest oceanic areas.

The joining of NAV CANADA, who plays a unique and critical role in managing the second-largest airspace in the world, constitutes a significant advancement for the Alliance—expanding its partnered airspace from 8 million to over 26 million square kilometres and supporting more than 12 million flights from 27 control centres each year. Aircraft will be able to cross almost half of the globe with iTEC SkyNex as the system managing their flights.

iTEC SkyNex will facilitate the introduction of Trajectory-Based Operations (TBO) into Canada, steer air traffic management towards a strategic approach and provide a more comprehensive view of the flight from take-off to landing. This new technology can accurately calculate trajectories and manage the progress of flights over a broader horizon, allowing for improved planning and greater efficiency. The system will increase efficiency, provide greater data accuracy, optimize flight paths and resources, reduce delays and CO2 emissions, and cut down costs significantly.

With the incorporation of NAV CANADA, the alliance will also acquire a partner that will contribute to evolving the iTEC SkyNex system and speeding up the introduction of new technologies, concepts and ever more sophisticated functions, sharing costs and know-how.

“We are delighted to be the first non-European ANSP to join the iTEC Alliance. Founded on the spirit of collaboration, NAV CANADA is proud to now be part of this partnership. A better future is ahead of us with iTEC SkyNex; we are now in a position to achieve goals that were previously unimaginable and build towards more sustainable skies,” said Raymond G. Bohn, President and CEO, NAV CANADA.

Dirk Mahns, DFS COO and Chairman of the iTEC Board, stated that “NAV CANADA’s entry into the alliance constitutes a significant milestone and highlights the fact that we have a highly advanced technology and a spirit of collaboration that are delivering tangible results and encouraging interoperability between air navigation service providers, a key aspect to transforming aviation and managing flights more intelligently and efficiently”.

Getting ready for cybersecurity regulations

Francesca Popescu and Yann Berger from Airbus explored Part-IS, a European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) initiative that introduces requirements for the management of security risks that could affect information and communication technology systems and data used for civil aviation purposes.

Presenting at the Indra Theatre, Popescu and Berger gave an in-depth of analysis of what is technically Regulation 2023/203, noting it will align with the US Federal Aviation Administration requirements and is broader in applicability than many EASA regulations.

They pointed out that Part-IS – which will come into effect from October 2025 – is far more than a requirement for an Information Security Management System (ISMS) and should be studied carefully.

Berger said the goal should be to go beyond compliance. An ISMS is based on the idea of continuous improvement and so there will doubtless be additional requirements in future.

Indeed, he noted the industry must ultimately aim towards integrated risk management where physical safety meets cybersecurity. Organisations affected should perform a gap assessment and then define an implementation strategy to overcome any shortcomings.

In a wide-ranging discussion, the differences between risk management in the air and on the ground were also highlighted, as each is exposed to distinct types of attack and risk.

Aircraft, for example, don’t have cyber specialists on board and cannot immediately adjust systems. The aim therefore is to ensure prevention – attackers must not be able to get at aircraft systems inflight.

On the ground, there are not such clearly defined boundaries, and the vulnerabilities are far greater. Because it is impossible to protect against every potential attack, a combination of prevention, detection and reaction is the most viable way forward. Organisations should also have a good reporting system so that authorities and relevant third parties can anticipate an attack or react as necessary.

Berger concluded that the aim must always be an end-to-end approach that ensures safety and security risks are minimised.

Preparing for new airspace users

Richard Ellis from NATS gave the audience a glimpse of the future with his presentation on new airspace users at the Future Skies Theatre.

Ellis explained that the skies of 2034 will be very different from those of today. The speed of development is difficult to ascertain but there is little doubt that disruptive technologies and new airspace entrants will transform the industry.

He highlighted a number of areas that have already begun changing or are at least in the planning stage:

• There will be a modal shift in transportation. Although human pilots may initially be involved in some advanced air mobility (AAM) flights, eventually uncrewed operations at scale will be routine.
• Airspace will be integrated from space to ground. Ellis emphasised that it cannot only be about what is happening below 500ft but rather must involve a more holistic approach.
• Regulators must embark on the same journey as the industry and enable different flight regulations, including digital instrument Flight Rules (IFR). Ellis suggested that AAM will use visual flight rules (VFR), then move to IFR before digital IFR becomes commonplace.
• Infrastructure will become increasingly complex and abundant with vertiports springing up across cities. The number and location of vertiports will be an important factor in the concept of operations (CONOPS) as most new airspace users will rely on battery power and so managing their flight times and capabilities will be critical to safety.
• Air navigation service providers (ANSPs) will need to accelerate and complete their digitalisation work to integrate all airspace users safely and seamlessly.

Ellis said there are several difficult challenges and questions ahead, such as determining the capacity needed since many areas will potentially go from hundreds of flights a day to tens of thousands.

He called for ANSPs to de-risk as much as possible. Possible risk mitigation strategies include validating the CONOPS and business cases at the earliest opportunity, providing regulators with the requisite data to help them make informed separation standard rules, and generating visualisations of future airspace.

On the road to virtualisation

A SESAR walking tour on virtualisation took in developments on display at the DLR, Frequentis and Indra stands.

SESAR’s Adriano Acanfora – the host of the tour – set the scene by explaining that the ultimate goal is a digital European sky that is efficient, resilient and sustainable. An important step on this path is the creation of virtual control centres that decouple the technology from the air traffic controller (ATCO).

At the Indra stand, it was explained the Virtual Centre with Triangle Architecture and Cyber Resilience (VITACTY) project and its involvement in iSNAP, which is the name for the technological evolution of the iTEC SkyNex platform.

VITACY will separate and provide data related to specific functionalities, such as arrival management (AMAN), time-based separation (TBS) and conflict detection. Validation tests in AMAN and TBS are ongoing and anticipated benefits include cost savings through the greater rationalisation of services. VITACY will also open the door for competition in data provision.

iSNAP, meanwhile, will advance iTEC communications to a more robust model, updating the ATM system supervision and data recording functions. The calculated trajectory of each flight plan will also be improved thanks to information received directly from the aircraft.

At Frequentis, it was explained that moving the technology into a data centre away from the controller has enormous advantages for resilience. There could be a second or third operational centre, for example, and even a second data centre. Aside from strengthening contingency plans this enables updates to be easily undertaken. The theory is that, ultimately, control of an airspace sector can be performed from anywhere in Europe, realising the digital sky dream.

The final element in this idea was described at the DLR stand. The Increased Flexibility of ATCO Validations (IFAV3) project will fill an important gap in the virtualisation concept. As it stands, ATCOs are endorsed on a specific sector following months of on-the-job training, which is expensive in terms of time and money and limits operational agility.

The idea is that through support tools, procedural changes, competency-based training, smart sector grouping and automation, ATCOs can be endorsed for multiple sectors. For example, tools might include a heat map that predicts future traffic density while procedural changes will move towards standardisation. User cases will also involve remote towers.

ATCOs that can move across sectors will complement the idea of virtual centres. It will make better use of existing capacity, improve resilience, enhance rostering possibilities and lower training costs.

FREQUENTIS X10 prepares Luxembourg Airport for future-ready voice communications

• Frequentis X10 voice communication system (VCS) to modernise tower and approach
  infrastructure for air/ground and ground/ground communications
• X10 VCS provides a market-leading approach to cyber security and the most intuitive
  Human Machine Interface (HMI) for the air traffic controllers

Luxembourg Air Navigation Administration (ANA) has selected the Frequentis X10 VCS to modernise the voice communication system infrastructure for its tower control and approach centre at Luxembourg Airport.

X10 VCS is a fully software-based and air traffic management (ATM)-grade IT VCS, suited for both virtualised and conventional airspace. The offered solution provides all essential features for reliable air/ground and ground/ground communications. It provides the resilience and cyber security required of a system built for safety-critical ATM, with a unique multi-redundancy design, as well as the ability to adapt capacity depending on demand.

“The X10 is our next-generation VCS system, designed with operational agility and a future-proof update strategy that will ensure business continuity throughout ATM operations,” says Hannu Juurakko, Frequentis Executive Vice President ATM Civil and Chairman of the ATM Executive Team. “Having
worked with Luxembourg ANA for over 20 years, we are dedicated to supporting them with the changing demands of their airspace, providing the most modern VCS on the market with a clear path to a future unified communication solution.”

Frequentis X10 VCS adds value to every air traffic control operation, making it particularly strong from the air traffic controllers’ perspective. The loading of roles and the handling of scenarios are easy and intuitive, without any disruption to service provision. The advanced user functions, including sensitive and gesture-based operation, ensure any clutter on the operator panel is eliminated.

“As a long-term customer of Frequentis for many decades, we trust their solutions implicitly and are looking forward to this VCS modernisation to support our airspace with managing increasing demands, as well as preparing us for future requirements and ensuring the highest level of safety for our customers,” says Claudio Clori, Director, Administration of Air Navigation.

Leidos establishes Air Traffic Management Center of Excellence in Indo-Pacific Region

 Leidos, a FORTUNE® 500 innovation company, has announced the establishment of an Air Traffic Management (ATM) Research and Collaboration Center in Singapore to keep pace with the rapidly evolving demands of global aviation. This operational expansion is intended to deliver safe and efficient solutions to the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and Air Navigation Service Providers in the Indo-Pacific region.

“This expansion represents the next step in delivering the highest level of airspace services to the Indo-Pacific region,” said Ed Sayadian, Leidos senior vice president, transportation solutions. “We are excited to grow our regional team with innovative thinkers who will engage with a broad base of global air transportation stakeholders to advance critical air traffic management capabilities.”

Axel Bensch, pictured below, has been appointed to lead operations in the region as well as the new center, bringing with him more than 25 years of commercial aviation and ATM expertise. Under his leadership, the Center will collaborate with regional universities, research institutes and industry partners to augment international air traffic solutions and enhance operations in the region leveraging Leidos’ 65-year history of supporting air navigation service providers and their mission.

The Center will also provide collaborative research and development for advanced capabilities in trajectory-based operations and international air traffic flow management through Skyline-X^TM – Leidos’ comprehensive air traffic management platform.

For more on Leidos’ extensive solutions in air traffic management, visit www.leidos.com/ATM.