Poland increases air traffic capacity

The Air Navigation Service Provider of Poland (PANSA) has successfully installed ETFMS Entry Node in Warsaw, enabling a superior awareness of the air traffic situation over Polish airspace, facilitating an increase in efficiency and thus traffic volume.

ETFMS stands for Enhanced Tactical Flow Management System and contributes to improved accuracy and better predictability of air traffic in the European air space. COMSOFT has been a supplier for the Central Flow Management Unit (CFMU, now the Network Manager of EUROCONTROL) which has developed and run ETFMS since 2000. Its proven benefits for the community of airspace users led to the continuous expansion of the ETFMS Entry Node network.

ETFMS enables an overview of traffic across Europe and adjacent airspace by collecting the most up-to-date air traffic position data together with flight plan data. This allows a more accurate correlation of the air situation to be sent to EUROCONTROL, significantly increasing the precision of traffic prediction with real-time knowledge of the actual and expected air traffic situation.

Poland borders six countries and is a gateway to the East for en-route air traffic from central and northern Europe, emphasising the need for efficient airspace use. The country has also been experiencing a rise in tourist numbers since 2010 with an increase of over 11% up to 2013, and its peak high during the UEFA Championships 2012. A growing trend for cultural travel around the globe has also successfully secured Poland’s visitor appeal – further highlighting a need for greater capacity.

With the ETFMS Entry Node now fitted, Poland and airspace users will also notice benefits arising from improved real-time availability in ETFMS, a reduction in delays, lower overall operational costs for airlines and environmental benefits through reduced emissions. ETFMS side-effect of reducing aviation's environmental footprint further characterises it as a forward-thinking technology from EUROCONTROL delivering revolutionary environmental best practices to the industry and is therefore well suited for today’s carbon conscious demands.

With the Network Manager in Brussels collecting surveillance and flight plan data for flights throughout Europe, and creating more accurate traffic reports in order to balance capacity and demand, each of the COMSOFT Entry Nodes plays a pivotal role in collecting data from air traffic control centres and distributing the correlated data back to EUROCONTROL.

By 2002 the ETFMS Entry Nodes had been installed in 16 countries, and today 31 countries have joined, now counting a total of 53 nodes, including two ongoing projects for Cyprus and Estonia.