Weekly Review #252 - In the aftermath of the global IT outage

Picture of Vincent Lambercy
Posted July 24 2024 by Vincent Lambercy
 
I'm a software engineer by trade, an air traffic management professional by career, and an aviation enthusiast by passion. So, I have to comment on the recent events related to the recent 'global IT outage'. I will not comment on the cause and remedies, as that would just be speculation. I prefer to take a step back and look at a few key points, from an ATM perspective.
First of all, the safety of all flights was never compromised. Some say "safety first", but real ATM professionals say "safety always". European ANSPs communicated clearly on this:
  • NATS reported no impact on its operations.
  • LVNL made a similar report and worked closely with Schiphol Airport to support them. 
  • BHANSA also indicated no impact on its own systems. 

From what has been published, only skyguide seemed to have some restrictions, lowering the capacity of the Swiss airspace by 30% for a few hours. This likely had little effect as Zürich airport stopped operations for a while. And, this brings me to the second point: aviation is a chain and ATM is only a small part of it. ATM systems were not affected. However, this was not the case for airline and airport operation systems.
 
These systems are not as critical as air traffic management systems are because lives don't depend on them. They are also less regulated. Check-in systems, flight information display systems, and more are required for airline and airport operations to run smoothly. But they are not safety-relevant.
So, should the same standards apply to non-safety critical systems? Well, technically, we could do this by making everything redundant. But this is a matter of price. Safety critical systems are redundant and have backups, and even those backups have backups. This comes at a high price and it has proven effective: the systems were not affected. But ATM systems are a small part of the whole aviation value chain and making everything redundant and more reliable, while possible, would prove economically unviable.
So yes, this incident was bad. Yes, it affected traffic, flights got cancelled, and passenger experiences were impacted. But nobody was at risk and bringing every other system to the same level of safety and resilience would not be cost-justifiable, so very occasionally, we likely have to cope with some inconveniences.
If you are interested in how airlines communicate about this, check our sister website, Hotel Fox Fox, which gathers news from airlines around the world. The choice of words is quite interesting, with airlines referencing 'third party' and 'vendor technology' as the culprits...
Funnily enough, the latest episode of our Radar Contact podcast came out yesterday. We discussed the future of ATM technologies at DFS, with CTO Friedrich-Wilhelm Menge. But as the episode was recorded before the event, it is not covered.

Vincent

ANSP news

  • Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan opened a new air corridor- On July 11, a new route T916 was opened, which passes through the airspace of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It is one of the additional routes for flights from Europe to Southeast Asia, reports the press service of “Kazaeronavigatsia” RSE of CAC of Ministry of Transport of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The route has so for now 19 flights from Europe to Southeast Asia since its opening, but is likely to see heavy use towards the end of the summer season as users take some time to get used to the new route.
  • Update worldwide IT disruption: capacity restrictions have been lifted with immediate effect  — Skyguide- Geneva, 19 July 2024, 14.00h – The Swiss air navigation service provider Skyguide was also affected by the global IT disruption from this morning.
  • Global IT outage: No operational impact on NATS - NATS- NATS provides safe and efficient air traffic services and innovative solutions to UK and international airports, airlines and governments.The widely reported Global IT outage impacting Microsoft products and services is not impacting any NATS operational systems.
  • Global outage of the Microsoft 365 platform - Impact on BHANSA and global companies | BHANSA - Bosnia and Herzegovina air navigation services agency- It is important to emphasize that all operational services and activities of BHANSA are not affected by this problem and continue to run normally. Our ICT system, based on local infrastructure, is not affected by this problem, which enables the uninterrupted provision of all operational services in air traffic.
  • GCAA signs Air Traffic Control training agreement with GANS- The UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has signed a contract with Global Air Navigation Services (GANS) for the provision of training services for Air Traffic Controllers. The contract will see GANS provide training services to GCAA ab-initio air traffic controllers at its state-of-the-art Training Centre in Al Ain.
  • Two experienced Lithuanian air traffic controllers are assisting HungaroControl in its operations- Due to a collaboration between the Lithuanian air navigation service provider, ORO Navigacija, and HungaroControl, we are delighted to welcome two experienced air traffic controllers into our team: Ligita Jončienė and Laura Indrašiūtė. Their temporary assigment significantly enahnces our capability in overseeing air traffic in Kosovo’s upper airspace, thereby alleviating the burden on our colleagues caused by continuously increasing overflying traffic.
  • NATS strengthens the UK’s position in European aviation research- NATS has been involved with SESAR since it began in the mid-2000’s. After the UK left the European Union, NATS continued to participate in SESAR projects but was unable to continue membership of the managing body that coordinates activities across the programme - SESAR 3 JU. That will now change. The UK’s association to the EU’s Horizon Europe programme in 2023 has paved the way for NATS to become an Associated Member of the SESAR 3 JU, giving the UK a seat at the table in one of Europe’s largest public-private partnerships.
  • NAV CANADA and CAE partner to train ATCOs and Flight Service Specialists- NAV CANADA and CAE today announced that they have signed a strategic agreement to increase training capacity for crucial air traffic services professionals. Under this first-of-its-kind partnership in Canada, CAE instructors will deliver initial training for Flight Service Specialists and Air Traffic Controllers using NAV CANADA’s training curriculum and courseware. The first classes will begin in the fall of 2024 at a new purpose-built Air Traffic Services Training Centre on CAE’s campus in Montreal.
  • NATS OpenAir – another step closer to integrated airspace - NATS Blog- Development of NATS OpenAir, our proposal for a future integrated airspace management system, continues apace. We’re not alone in believing tomorrow’s aviation landscape is lining up to look very different from that of today, with more and more new and diverse airspace users seeking access to our skies from a multitude of service providers. To cope with this heightened demand from an increasingly wide variety of crewed and uncrewed aircraft, we’re developing comprehensive proposals for a new integrated airspace management entity whose services will pave the way to safe and seamless integration for new and existing airspace users.
  • New technology to allow Heathrow to prioritise emission targets - NATS- Known as Demand Capacity Balancer, DCB is a ‘digital twin’ that can predict and model future operational performance in near real-time. In operation at Heathrow since 2015, DCB allows Heathrow to understand the impact of the wide range of factors that influence on time performance, from the strength of global winds to the location of airspace restrictions. The airport team use it to simulate thousands of potential scenarios to be sure they’re working to the optimum operational plan each day.

Airport news

  • ACI data confirms top 20 busiest airports in world – Airport World- In 2023 global aircraft movements were close to 96 million, representing a gain of 12.6% from 2022 results or a recovery of 92.8% vs pre-pandemic results (2019). The top 20 airports, representing close to 11% of global traffic (10.5 million movements), witnessed a gain of 12.2% from their 2022 results or a recovery of 95.3% on their 2019 results (11 million movements in 2019). Eleven airports from the top 20 rankings are in the United States.

Market news

Context information

  • A Human-Focused Approach to Aviation Safety - Flight Safety Foundation- Technological advances are essential to improving aviation safety and operational efficiency, but despite leaps in technology, humans remain at the center of the safety equation. The 2024 Asia Pacific Summit for Aviation Safety (AP-SAS), scheduled for Aug. 13-15 in Beijing, will take an in-depth look at why a human-centered approach is critical to advancing aviation safety and how it can lead to more sustainable and effective safety outcomes.
  • 2024 Local Single Sky Implementation+ (LSSIP+) event - EUROCONTROL- The event will take place on 5th October 2024 and will bring together national focal points and experts involved in the air traffic management modernisation implementation planning and monitoring activities carried out by EUROCONTROL together with the SESAR Deployment Manager and in collaboration with ICAO's European and North Atlantic (EUR/NAT) Office.

Research and innovation

  • Sustainable Taxi Operations - EUROCONTROL- The improvement of environmental performance of airports is without doubt one of the key challenges of many, if not all, airports. While the technology is available to support green ground and taxiing operations, one important missing link is a CONOPS that integrates the technological enablers in operations and addresses the features and requirements of new technology to maximise environmental benefits and operational efficiency.

UAV and UTM