A few weeks after the Paris air show where aircraft manufacturers again announced record orders, the airlines will be working out exactly where they will fly their ever-increasing fleets! Whilst this is excellent news for the airlines and manufacturers, I wonder if they gave much thought to how the ATM system would cope.

Whilst in most parts of the world it is comparatively straightforward to lay concrete and open new terminals, increasing airspace capacity presents a different challenge. In what is a global industry, it is clear that States cannot tackle the challenges alone. Instead, the most effective way of increasing capacity is to remove ‘artificial’ constraints such as national borders, develop more flexible airspace sharing arrangements and introduce regional planning.

The regions with the most challenging growth forecasts are Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific.

In Europe, where airspace is already congested, traffic is forecast to double by 2030. The issue is being tackled through the ‘Single European Sky’ under which initiatives such as FABs and FUA are already starting to deliver benefits. Long established projects such as MUAC and CFMU have already demonstrated the benefit of regional cooperation. In the medium term, the fastest growing region will probably be the Middle East. Year-on-year traffic growth is forecast to be as high as 14-15% as new hubs are developed to support the rapidly growing Middle East airlines. There have been a number of studies in the region and, most recently, CANSO has initiated the Helios supported MIDRAR project which will seek to develop and implement regional solutions to increase capacity and improve efficiency. In the longer term, the Asia-Pacific region will experience further significant growth but here there is less progress. The much discussed ‘Single Asian Sky’ now appears to have stalled and although there have been some smaller regional initiatives including the Bay of Bengal Cooperative ATFM System (BOBCAT), the lack of a central ATC body to coordinate activity has prevented real progress.

Whilst there have been a number of successful regional initiatives, particularly in Europe, progress is slow and not ambitious enough. To meet demand, regional initiatives must be developed more aggressively and in closer cooperation with the airspace users. The route ahead is not straightforward and will be dependent on the will of the politicians as well as the aviation industry. New technology will of course help, but there will also be a number of difficult political issues to resolve before any real progress can be made - sovereignty and national security will be a concern for many; as will loss of a ‘national capability’, jobs etc. But if we are to act in the interests of aviation as a whole, what is the alternative?

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