Weekly Review #229 - AI, Concorde and digital apron control

Written by Vincent Lambercy | December 6 2023

Controlling Concorde. NATS's article reflects on the 20th anniversary of the Concorde's final flight, highlighting the unique challenges and experiences involved in managing its supersonic journeys, including its impressive acceleration, the spectacle it created, and the lasting impact it had on air traffic control professionals.

Digital apron control in Vancouver. Indra will provide a state-of-the-art digital apron control system to Vancouver International Airport, integrating advanced ground surveillance with natural vision for efficient aircraft movement.

Happy birthday EUROCONTROL. This year, EUROCONTROL celebrates its 60th anniversary. The organization continues to support aviation with technical excellence, leading innovations, and promoting decarbonisation. Here's to the dedicated staff and members who have made this milestone possible.

Just how useful is artificial intelligence in air traffic management? Explore the potential of artificial intelligence in air traffic management through use cases and trials discussed at the recent SESAR Innovation Days in Seville.

ANSP news

NATS appoints new director to drive commercial business for new airspace users - NATS Services has appointed Richard Ellis as its New Airspace Users Director. Richard will lead the team delivering services and technology-based products to customers around the world, focusing on drones and eVTOL operations, integrated traffic management solutions and high altitude and space users as the market develops.
Remembering Concorde – controlling Speedbird One - NATS Blog - Ady Dolan, Heathrow Controller, joined NATS in 1999 and saw Concorde fly for four years. He reflects on what it was like to control the supersonic jetliner…
NAV CANADA wins CANSO Global Safety Achievement Award 2023 - CANSO has announced NAV CANADA as the recipient of the CANSO Global Safety Achievement Award 2023. The award recognises the individuals, teams, or companies that have made a significant contribution to aviation safety in the past 12 months. The award went to the Fatigue Risk Management Application Development Team at NAV CANADA.
Santa’s top-secret flight plan with Airservices Australia revealed ahead of Operation Present Drop this Christmas - Christmas is fast approaching, with Santa mapping out his special, top-secret flight plan with Airservices Australia this week to ensure all’s in order for Operation Present Drop on Christmas Eve. As Australia’s official Santa flight management team, Airservices’ air traffic controllers have allocated Santa’s call sign – ‘Red One’ – and carefully designed his flightpath across the country, so his sleigh can get to where he needs to, safely and efficiently.
Austro Control GmbH - Revised procedures for VFR flights in airspace Classes C and D - With December 28th, 2023, revised procedures for VFR flights in airspace Classes C and D will become effective, requiring such flights to establish two-way radio communication with the respective ATC unit.

Market news

Indra to provide Vancouver International Airport with the world’s most advanced digital apron control system - Indra has been awarded a contract to provide Canada’s Vancouver International Airport with a complete turnkey solution for digital traffic control on its aprons, the aircraft movement and parking areas in the vicinity of passenger and cargo terminals Indra’s solution integrates a multi-mast 4K natural vision of the seven aprons to be controlled with the market’s most advanced ground surveillance system – all easily controlled with a single mouse

Context information

EUROCONTROL at 60: 60 years of supporting European aviation years - This year marks the 60th anniversary of EUROCONTROL – a journey that began in the late 1950s when European States first came together in a technical working group (called 'EUROCONTROL') comprising civil and military representatives.

Reports and data

Passenger traffic inching towards full recovery in October - Aircraft movements increased by +8.7% in October across the European airport network compared to the same period last year, and remained –4.5% below pre-pandemic (October 2019) levels.

Research and innovation

How useful is artificial intelligence in air traffic management? - SESAR JU - Just how useful is artificial intelligence in air traffic management? That was at the heart of discussions on day two of the SESAR Innovation Days in Seville on 28 November. Experts headlined some of the operational use cases where artificial intelligence applications are being trialled through research and innovation, as well as some of the challenges facing acceptance and implementation of this promising technology.
Three Ways AI is Already Revolutionizing Air Travel Today - The past year has seen a massive increase in new generative AI solutions coming to market and an increased focus and usage of AI tools and solutions. In fact, in a recent survey of 2,620 global business leaders by analyst firm, Deloitte, 94 percent of respondents agreed that AI is critical to success over the next five years. Also, 79 percent of respondents claimed to have successfully deployed three or more types of AI applications.
Conference showcases innovation and scientific excellence, the twin engines for delivering the Digital European Sky - SESAR JU - 450 of Europe’s leading researchers in air traffic management and aviation gathered in Seville for the SESAR Innovation Days from 27 to 30 November. Hosted by University of Seville at its Faculty of Engineering, with support from SESAR 3 JU founding members, Enaire, Indra, Ryanair and AENA, the conference featured some 66 posters and 42 papers, covering data-driven methods for safety and resilience prediction, climate-optimised trajectories, drone traffic management, airport operations, among other research areas.
Navigating the Ops Landscape: A Comprehensive Guide to DevOps, MLOps, DataOps, AIOps and ModelOps - The aviation sector is undergoing a great transformation, mainly due to digitalisation, in which future data and software-based solutions are being developed to address issues such as safety, efficiency, resilience or emissions. Blog post by datascience.aero
Acubed Partnership with qBraid Explores How Quantum Computing May Address Aerospace’s Most Computationally Intensive Problems - At Acubed, we encourage an open-door policy for ideation, intellectual collisions and passionate debate, and are constantly looking to push great ideas forward and test hypotheses that have the potential to transform our industry in meaningful ways. This year, we set our sights on exploring whether quantum computing technology has the power to address the aerospace industry’s most computationally intensive problems.

UAV and UTM

Benidorm hosts mass drone flights with three U-space providers in U-ELCOME demonstration - Unmanned airspace - Benidorm is hosting a massive flight of more than 25 drones operating simultaneously in an urban environment. The demonstrations, held 1 December 2023, represent a milestone in the field of technology for the management of drone operations of this nature. The programme is carried out with the collaboration of the Benidorm City Council.
Digital sky research project Di-PEGASUS launched under EuroUSC Italia leadership - Unmanned airspace - Digital sky research project Di-PEGASUS – DIgital comPEtitive next Generation Aviation technologies for SUStainable business models, products, and services – held its kickoff meeting, hosted by project coordinator EuroUSC Italia.

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