The old familiar story – but with a new twist

We’ve been here before. It seems that over the last three or four years the theme of my editorial has often been one of ‘doing more with what we have.’ In this issue of ON AIR! our articles have the same core focus on maximising efficiency at a time of resource constraint, but this time a new element is present – that of regulatory imperative. Single European Sky regulations are compelling service providers to introduce new systems and processes and make new alliances. And their challenge, in these times of economic austerity and resource constraints, is how best to respond. Helios is helping Swiss air navigation service provider skyguide resolve some of those challenges.

Resource constraints are often dictated by the regulatory and economic environment. This could be said to be the case for Heathrow airport, in terms of its number of runways – and for radio spectrum, in terms of historic band allocations. For the people in charge of improving efficiency the challenge is to think outside the box and find new ways of operating. You can read about how Helios is supporting Heathrow with a new trial to improve runway efficiency, and our views on the latest moves to exploit the available radio spectrum.

I hope you enjoy these articles, and, as ever, we welcome your feedback.

Best wishes

Mike Shorthose
Chairman