At a ceremony held the night before ATC Global 2012 opened, EUROCONTROL received the Jane’s ATC Award for its “Contribution to European Air Traffic Management” with the European ATS Route Network Version-7 project.

The prestigious Jane’s ATC Global Awards reflect the air traffic control community’s commitment to efficient, safer and greener aviation. Nominations were reviewed by an experienced panel of judges from the FAA, ICAO, CANSO, IATA, IFATCA, EUROCONTROL and Jane’s Information Group.

The main idea of a Single European Sky is to have an airspace route network that is based on traffic flows and not national boundaries. The European ATS Route Network Version-7 project is helping to achieve this idea. The product of a coordinated, integrated partnership of states, their civil and military experts, air navigation service providers and international organisations, ARN Version-7 will improve flight efficiency by at least 10% from 2011 to 2014.

Rolling improvements to the route network are needed to adapt to growing traffic and to cater for the changing patterns of air traffic flows. The European air traffic services (ATS) route network is updated periodically to do this. The latest version, the seventh, is a long-term, network vision for the airspace structure in 44 European Civil Aviation Conference states.

A pan-European view

The European ATS Route Network Version-7 project takes a pan-European view of the network, treating European airspace as one continuum with routes designed along traffic flows and not borders. It incorporates airspace users’ preferred routes and profiles. It has optimised supporting air traffic control sectors, unconstrained by FIR (flight information region) or national boundaries. It is going to help eliminate bottlenecks and improve flight efficiency. It introduces optimised procedures for the enhanced use of airspace and represents a balanced approach to European network, regional and local requirements.

The contents

The ARN Version-7 has over 700 packages of proposals, containing more than 2,500 route changes, some 50 re-sectorisation projects and around 30 TMA (terminal area) projects. They will progressively be included from 2011 until 2014/5. The development phase began in October 2009 and was finished in January 2011. Implementation started in spring 2011 and continues in stages until autumn 2014.

Benefits

Flying distances will be reduced by approximately 12 million nautical miles – a saving of 72,000 tons of fuel, a decrease of 240,000 tons of emissions and financial savings of €60 million.

To date, more than 6 million nautical miles have been eliminated through ARN Version-7.

Thanks to these improvements, the European ATS route network will be only 2.9% longer than the great circle distances – calculated from TMA entry to TMA exit points – from an airspace design point of view.

Fitting the bill

ARN Version-7 project meets the Single European Sky II regulations as well as European targets, including the Network Management Implementing Rule (IR), the Performance Scheme and the FAB IRs. It also is a direct response to the IATA/CANSO/EUROCONTROL Flight Efficiency Plan and EUROCONTROL’s Airspace Action Plan, adopted in 2007.

EUROCONTROL press release