EU to invest in a common European air navigation service

The EU's TEN-T Programme will co-finance with near €2 million a study on the new generation of communications infrastructure for the European air traffic management. The project is to analyse the future requirements and performance of European service providers and to come up with recommendations on the best and most cost-efficient business model.

European air traffic management (ATM) is built on different national systems that are not always interoperable for seamless ground-to-ground and air-to-ground communications. Moreover, some ATM services need an upgrade to faster, safer, more efficient and reliable technologies to cope with the increasing number of flights.

European air navigation service providers have joined forces to prepare the grounds for the future European air traffic management system. They will address in particular two major ATM communication infrastructures: the next generation of pan-European network services enabling the exchange of air traffic information and the data link services improving communication between the pilot and the control tower with digitalised computer messages.

The aim of this study is to analyse the technical and business needs of both communication infrastructures to ensure high-quality and efficient services ultimately leading to safer and 'greener' air traffic in Europe.

The project involves members of A6 alliance, a group of air navigation service providers from Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Sweden and the UK, which together represent more than 70% of the European air traffic.  Key industry stakeholders in the field will be consulted by the study team.

The study is expected to make a fundamental contribution to the Single European Sky initiative (SES), which aims to increase Europe's airspace capacity, reduce the risk of accidents and the environmental impact of flights and cut the costs for passengers.

 The project was selected for EU funding with the assistance of external experts under the TEN-T Multi-Annual Call 2013, priority 'Air Traffic Management'. Its implementation will be monitored by INEA, the European Commission's Innovation and Networks Executive Agency.

The project is to be completed by December 2015.

Project: 2013-EU-40002-S

The TEN-T Programme was established by the European Commission to support the construction and upgrade of transport infrastructure across the European Union.

The INEA is managing the technical and financial implementation of the TEN-T programme.

Contact: INEA-Communication@ec.europa.eu