FABEC puts in place a common safety structure

Service Providers and Competent Authorities clasp the 373 opportunity and collaborate in harmonizing safety in international air navigation service provision.

“There is no doubt. The only constant in the aviation industry are the changes. Whether driven by ecological or economic sustainability, new laws and socio-political lobbying imply the ability of all players to promptly and efficiently adapt their infrastructure, processes and skills to seize the most favourable opportunities and mitigate threats arising from new market trends. In such circumstances, the races are won by those who dare to adopt the most agile thinking and those who boldly embrace flexible attitudes. Whenever a situation requires trade-offs, safety always prevails, regardless of national or airspace borders.” (Gianpaolo Cecchin)

Based on these principles, FABEC Service Providers and Competent Authorities from FABEC States have collaborated in developing the newest “Coordination Agreement for safe Multi-Actor Changes” (CAMAC) Manual. The manual collects common agreed principles for the coordination of changes to the functional system affecting multiple service providers, including exchanges with their oversight bodies. Safety assessments can now be directly linked to the coordinated Overarching Safety Argument (OASA) to claim that the complete change is safe.

With the endorsement by the National Competent Authorities Committee, the new CAMAC formally puts into force a harmonized working method and nurtures the swift exchange of information between FABEC member States, and with their neighbours, in favour of safety. The CAMAC is another stepping-stone towards the vision to make a set of instruments available across the entire Europe for harmonizing and simplifying the implementation of a common legislation in a heterogeneous market. It answers both the Authority and the Organization requirements from the new European Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/373 for providers of air traffic management and air traffic services.

The learnings from the CAMAC Team and the FABEC Change Task Force experts’ work has shown that a cared and purposeful collaboration leads to rewarding outcomes, rather than iterative, infinite open discussions. Already the results of CAMAC are being used in course & training material by Eurocontrol and is made freely available to other FABs. This success story shall inspire further Service Providers and Competent Authorities in taking advantages of the tools and contribute in their harmonized development.