Indra participates in Sesar trials to improve the integration between airports and the European Network Manager

Indra has taken part in the exercises conducted within the framework of SESAR,  the technological cornerstone of the future Single European Sky, to validate a new concept of operations designed to enhance precision and predictability in flight management (Target Time Management) and improve the synchronisation of the Airport Operations Plan with the air traffic European Network Operations Plan (AOP-NOP).

As part of these exercises, Indra supplied its Airport Operations Plan (AOP), which guarantees a common operations plan in the airport for all the parties involved in its management. These include the airport operator itself, the various airlines, those responsible for handling services and the local air traffic manager, among others. 

The integration of all this airport information with the European aeronautical network will ensure unprecedented precision in the management of air operations.

The exercise took place in May in the airports of Barcelona, Madrid, Alicante and Palma, with the participation of their respective air traffic flow control centers.

Each of these airports had an Indra AOP airport planning system connected to EUROCONTROL's Network Manager validation platform, on which this exercise was conducted.

This platform assessed ways to resolve in advance the air traffic bottlenecks that occur in airports (hotspots), by testing new procedures for traffic Demand Capacity Balancing (DCB). This succeeded in avoiding saturation in airports while optimizing the use of airspace.

One of the greatest benefits of this validation exercise was that the synchronization horizon between the Airport Operations Plan and the Network Operations Plan was constantly achieved 24 hours in advance. This made it possible to track air traffic patterns and their impact on the four airports and the rest of the European airspace through its network manager.

The successful integration of Indra's system with the Network Operations Plan (NOP) highlights the company's solution as one of the most advanced for enabling airports to join the Single European Sky and optimize their operations.

The validation trials carried out within the SESAR program were conducted by EUROCONTROL, as the Network Manager; AENA as an airport operator; ENAIRE, as a provider of air navigation services; and Indra, as a technology partner.

As the technological pillar of the Single European Sky initiative, SESAR aims to modernise and harmonise air traffic management in Europe. The SESAR Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU) was established in 2007 as a public-private partnership to support this endeavour.