Interoperability of European air traffic: EC Adopted Two Regulations

The European Commission has adopted two Regulations concerning the interoperability of European air traffic management systems. The two actions aim at modernizing air traffic management systems.

Vice-President Jacques Barrot, Commissioner in charge of Transport said: “These legal instruments are milestones in the implementation of the Single Sky, as they establish clear interoperability requirements for the systems used by service providers to run their business to high safety and efficiency standards; for civil and military airspace users to make best use of congested skies, and for the air traffic controllers who handle over 27,000 flights a day.”

The ‘co-ordination and transfer’ Regulation establishes the requirements for automatic systems for the exchange of flight data that notify, co-ordinate and transfer flights between air traffic control units. The aim is to ensure a high level of safety and efficiency of the systems located in the same or in different Member States.

This regulation also applies to flight data exchange systems supporting the co-ordination procedures between air traffic services units and controlling military units, in accordance with the ‘flexible use of airspace’ Regulation.

The ‘flight plans’ Regulation sets out the procedural requirements for flight plans in the pre-flight phase. The aim is to ensure that all parties involved in submitting, modifying, accepting and distributing flight plans (i.e. aircraft operators, pilots and air traffic service units) will have the same flight plan before take off. It defines the obligations of a centralized flight planning processing and distribution service, provided through the Integrated Initial Flight Plan Processing System (IFPS), established under the authority of Eurocontrol.
The Regulation also defines the obligations in the case of flights entering European airspace without a flight plan.

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