The European Union (EU) has called for increased collaboration on technology in order to fulfill the benefits of developing a so-called Single European Sky.
Siim Kallas, Vice-president of the European Commission, who is also in charge of transport, made his appeal during a visit to the 49th edition of the Paris Air Show on Tuesday, underlining that in order to achieve the Single European Sky, technologies and procedures should be implemented in the same way across Europe as soon as possible.
The European Commission will submit a proposal to the European Council in October for designated funds and governance in order to make the SESAR deployment phase go smoothly.
SESAR is the European air traffic control infrastructure modernization program, which aims at developing the new generation air traffic management system “capable of ensuring the safety and fluidity of air transport worldwide over the next 30 years.”
During the SESAR deployment phase, which is programmed to begin in 2013 and end in 2020, the EU will seek to build the new infrastructure at a wide scale both in Europe and in partner countries. This will be carried out under the responsibility of the industry without further public funding.
“During my visit to the air show, I have seen the strong innovation capability of the air transport sector,” Kallas stated. “Amongst them, the ‘unmanned air systems’, extremely visible at the Paris Air Show, illustrate the diversity that technology must address without compromising safety.”
Kallas went on to call for the deployment of new technologies and procedures to contribute towards meeting the objectives of the Single European Sky. In addition, the Commission’s Vice-President launched the new Advisory Council for Aviation Research and Innovation in Europe during his visit to the air show, opening the kick-off meeting in the presence of senior industry representatives.
This assembly of all aviation stakeholders, European institutions and Member States takes the process initiative with the “Flightpath 2050” report further and will prepare a new European roadmap for research and innovation in aviation, looking beyond the Single European Sky and SESAR horizons up to 2050.
Its first steps are expected to address the environmental and energy challenges of aviation by launching a European roadmap for the deployment of sustainable biofuels in aviation, which will be announced by Commissioner Guenther Oettinger, also at the Paris Air Show.
Furthermore, Kallas stressed the importance of the establishment of functional airspace blocks in December 2012 by which Member States collectively “re-design and rationalize their airspace in order to better respond to airspace users’ needs will contribute to the defragmentation of airspace and should allow important economies of scale.”
