INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATIONS 52nd ANNUAL CONFERENCE - Bali, 24th to 28th April 2013 Agenda Item: B.4.1.4* IFATCA 13 WP No.80 International Civil Aviation Organization Air Traffic Management Requirements and Performance Panel (ATMRPP) Presented by Alexander Schwassmann 1. Introduction 1.1 The Air Traffic Management Requirements and Performance Panel (ATMRPP) is a panel that has mostly worked on future concepts and their associated requirements, in particular aspects relating to the implementation of the Global Air Traffic Management Operational Concept (ICAO Doc 9854). 1.2 Over the years it has produced a number of ICAO documents, including the Manual on Air Traffic Management System Requirements (ICAO Doc 9882) and the Manual on Global Performance of the Air Navigation System (ICAO Doc 9883). 1.3 In more recent times the ATMRPP had developed the FF-ICE Concept. FF-ICE stands for Flight and Flow Information for a Collaborative Environment. It is expected to be implemented in the 2018+ timeframe. It is a replacement for the flight plan and associated messages. 1.4 IFATCA has been a member of the ATMRPP for a considerable time, with former EVPT Andrew Beadle ably representing IFATCA as far as his many other duties for the Federation allowed. I was confirmed as the new IFATCA representative on the ATMRPP in November 2011. This report covers my first full year on the Panel, the period from March 2012 to February 2013. 1.5 Due to time and budget constraints, I was unable to attend the March 2012 meeting of the Panel, but I did attend the July and October 2012 meetings. The July meeting was organised and sponsored by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, while the October meeting was hosted by ICAO in Montreal. 1.6 I would like to thank our office manager Tatiana Iavorskaia for arranging my stay in Montreal and providing much needed assistance with some computer problems, and our ANC representative Dr Ruth Stilwell for - as usual - assisting me in all things ICAO. I cannot stress enough how, as a Panel representative, it is very helpful to have someone to turn to who is familiar with ICAO proceedings. I would also like to thank Air France/KLM for providing free air travel to Montreal. 2. Discussion 2.1 Background B.4.1.4 /Page 1 of 7
2.1.1 The ATMRPP was first created as the Air Traffic Management Operational Concept Panel (ATMCP). The Panel developed the Global ATM Operational Concept between 1999 and 2003. The concept was accepted by the 11th ICAO Air Navigation Conference (ANConf/11). 2.1.2 In December 2004 the Panel was renamed the Air Traffic Management Requirements and Performance Panel (ATMRPP). This recognized that the work had progressed from the development of a concept to the task of implementing the concept. 2.1.3 The Panel s work has been the creation of a series of documents. To date these are: The Global ATM Operational Concept. ICAO Doc 9854. Manual on ATM System Requirements ICAO Doc 9882 Manual on Global Performance of the Air Navigation System ICAO Doc 9883. Manual on Flight and Flow Information for a Collaborative Environment ICAO Doc 9965. 2.1.4 The Panel holds three five-day meetings a year. In 2013, the Panel will meet between March 4 th and 8 th ; the other two meetings are tentatively scheduled for June/July and October. Due to time and budget constraints, IFATCA will not attend the March meeting, but it is planned to attend both the July and October meetings. 2.2 Current activities 2.2.1 FF-ICE(/1) 2.2.1.1 The future flight plan is now called Flight and Flow - Information for a Collaborative Environment (FF-ICE). The FF is a sub-set of the larger ICE (which is all ATM information). The introduction of FF-ICE will be a major change to the way flight plan information is handled today. 2.2.1.2 FF-ICE is information about a flight that: is for up to a year before departure (but can be created just before use); is dynamically updated (not a paper flight plan); continues to be used throughout the flight (not just something done before departure); is used for all coordination regarding the flight (so replaces inter-facility messaging, etc.); is used for exchanging trajectory data; continues to be dynamically updated until the aircraft gets to its final parking position; is archived for statistical use, including performance measurement. 2.2.1.3 It is so different from today s flight plan that it was felt a completely different term was required to highlight the change. This change affects the underlying data of all ATM operations and so affects just about everything. The ATMRPP realised the significance of this and has written a concept document published as ICAO doc 9965. 2.2.1.4 Work has now begun on an FF-ICE Submission and Maintenance Manual, with Eurocontrol serving as the bookkeeper and ICAO, Australia, South Africa, the UK and IFATCA contributing. The purpose of this document is to facilitate the implementation of the first FF-ICE package (from here on referred to as FF-ICE/1). 2.2.1.5 Not every participant in the ATM system will transition to FF-ICE/1 simultaneously although certain States may be able to act cooperatively to make the transition together. Adjacent States may operate with different types of flight planning systems, i.e. the present (FPL 2012) and the future (FF-ICE/1). Flights operating across these boundaries require the ability to provide flight information to both types of regions. Furthermore, those service providers that have moved to FF-ICE/1 have to be able to process both the present flight B.4.1.4 /Page 2 of 7
plan and FF-ICE/1 data for some period during the transition phase. It is also foreseen that those transitioning to FF-ICE/1 must ensure compatibility with FPL 2012 as well as retaining the ability to read and translate the present flight plan into FF-ICE/1 and forward FPL 2012 format to those that have not transitioned. The manual will have to address questions such as the following: How is the integrity of information maintained between different regions? Say that, in 2020, Europe and the U.S. have FF-ICE/1 enabled environments but Canada will only implement it in 2022. So how does the FF-ICE/1 information get from the U.S. to Europe on a flight that goes through Canada? Is it transmitted ground to ground, or will the aircraft carry it along? 2.2.1.6 A first outline of the document has been circulated within the ATMRPP. Work will now continue on the development of the various chapters. A first draft is to be made available to the March ATMRPP meeting, with the document to be finalized for adoption at the following ATMRPP meeting. 2.2.1.7 I originally had problems with this approach. Instead of writing yet another isolated Manual the ATMRPP should be proposing amendments to PANS-ATM and all Annexes concerned with flight plans. This is also in line with the Air Navigation Council s demands to the ATMRPP to finally put out SARPS from November 2011, and with the ATMRPP work plan approved by the Air Navigation Commission, which calls for a gap analysis first and then for the proposal of SARPS. In the end it was agreed that the proposed Manual will be both, and that by 2015 we will have both a Manual as guidance material as well as amendment proposals. The whole process will require close coordination with other ICAO bodies who own some of the Annexes affected by FF-ICE, and is highly ambitious, given that the Panel meets for 15 days per year, has other work to do, has to coordinate with other ICAO bodies who meet at different intervals, and most of the Panel members have other functions too. 2.2.2 Flight Plan 2012 2.2.2.1 The post-implementation review of the 2012 FPL will be part of the standard ICAO processes. The ATMRPP has not done any further work on this subject. 2.2.3 System Wide Information Sharing (SWIM) 2.2.3.1 SWIM is one of the hottest topics currently flying around ATM. Nearly all of the work items on the ATMRPP work programme currently deal with the sharing of information in one way or another. There is consensus between all stakeholders in ATM that, in order to achieve a significant performance increase in highly saturated airspace, more information has to be shared more frequently between all parties. 2.2.3.2 ICAO supports the idea to develop a commonly understood and agreed upon SWIM framework. A short (3-4 pages) document outlining a basic SWIM definition was forwarded to the 12 th Air Navigation Conference but I have not seen it. 2.2.3.3 The ATMRPP has continued work on a SWIM Concept. Discussions surrounding that concept indicated a need for the document to enable communication and collaboration on SWIM at a global level without being prescriptive and overly constraining. Between-Panel meetings between the FAA and EUROCONTROL apparently indicated that there are many concept-level issues for SWIM in an international context that still require resolution at a global level, such as Services provided to consumers - How does one associate what services will be provided to a particular consumer? Would we class consumers into some classes - unsophisticated, moderate, or advanced, and allow appropriate access assuming security approval? Level of Consumer Interaction - Is SWIM expected to keep the consumer from having to B.4.1.4 /Page 3 of 7
know the details of where to get information? An example is an aircraft from Europe to Mexico overflying the US, and the best trajectory above the US may be with the FAA SWIM. SWIM Membership levels Will there be regional SWIM arrangements based on geographical and traditional communities of interest, e.g., Western Europe, US/Canada, etc.? How do additional ANSPs get admitted into these arrangements? How does one approve access? It is expected that a mix of approaches, including commercial vendors, will exist. 2.2.4 Aircraft Access to SWIM (AAtS) 2.2.4.1 On August 30th, 2012, a presentation on the latest status and plans for AAtS was provided at the US Air Transportation Information Exchange Conference (ATIEC). Following the August presentation, a demonstration of the initial capability to deliver SWIM data into cockpits was conducted at the October 2012 annual Air Traffic Controllers Association (ATCA) conference. ATCA is a professional association made up mostly of corporate entities involved in the aviation industry. Its sole purpose is organising trade conferences. 2.2.4.2 The AAtS project team has begun to harmonize the efforts of AAtS in the US with the current efforts in Europe. Representatives from the FAA travelled to Brussels in May 2012 to meet with the SWIM Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) counterparts participating in SESAR WP 09.19 SWIM Air/Ground Data Exchange. 2.2.4.3 Flight demonstrations planned for 2013 and 2014 will focus on the uplink of information from ground systems to the cockpit via a commercial data link and commercial data management service. Once these demonstration flights are largely completed, the FAA intends to evaluate both uplink and downlink of information exchange from pilots entering information via cockpit tablet devices into ground based systems. These flights will occur in coordination with the expected update to the AAtS Concept of Operations that addresses bi-directional information. 2.2.4.4 The U.S. ATMRPP member presented an application for Electronic Flight Bags. It presently only runs on Android tablets, but a version for ipad is being developed. The demonstrator version only used simulated data that it was downloading from somewhere else in the tablet RAM, but the final version will allow real time information such as METARs, NOTAMs, active Restricted Areas to be accessed and displayed on a moving map also showing the actual flight planned route in the cockpit. In addition, an early prototype of an interactive PIREP publishing functionality was introduced demonstrating how pilots could digitally publish a PIREP into the FAA PIREP database. 2.2.5 Service Delivery Management (SDM) 2.2.5.1 In order to complement the CDM Manual Doc 9971 (still not officially published, but an advance copy can be accessed through the ICAO web site), ATMRPP has been tasked with producing a Manual on SDM. 2.2.5.2 The now-called Service Delivery Management Description was finalised at the July 2012 ATMRPP meeting and sent to the ICAO secretariat December 2012 who will decide in what form to publish it. So far I haven t seen anything. 2.2.6 ATM Requirements to MET operations: 2.2.6.1 Over the last three years, an initial relationship was developed between the ATMRPP and a study group supporting the MET section of the Secretariat, the Aerodrome Meteorological Observation and Forecast Study Group (AMOFSG). Starting with a first set of briefings in April 2010, the cooperation between the two domains resulted in the submission of a series B.4.1.4 /Page 4 of 7
of information papers to the July 2012 ATMRPP meeting. 2.2.6.2 Currently the real challenge lies in integrating MET information into ATM decision making from a performance based operations approach, not necessarily in making more or more diverse MET information available from a provision perspective. Fundamental to the discussion is how global interoperability should be ensured in the future ATM system with respect to MET service integration and provision. Traditionally, from a MET service provision perspective, a broad range of globally available MET products are defined by the SARPs of Annex 3 and the ATM related Annexes. However, in the emerging ATM system the level of service needs and service provision could differ from operating environment to operating environment around the globe. 2.2.6.3 A team of meteorologists from all over the world (Austria, Belgium, Canada, China/Hong Kong, France, Japan, U.S.) visited the October 2012 ATMRPP meeting to discuss the ATM needs with respect to MET services. The MET people themselves have recognised that current weather info as defined in Annex 3 does not sufficiently address performance based ATM, therefore a lot of states have started their own developments to meet regional and airport needs. Those efforts, however, lack interoperability and are narrowly tailored to individual needs. The Met people also feel that there is a need to study if and how climate change might affect ATM. Even though generally climate change means global warming, there are parts of the World for whom the climate change might result in harder winters (eg. the UK) and flooding (Africa and Asia). 2.2.6.4 The MET people want to know from the aviation community: Qualified impacts of weather on ATM in terms of eg. arrival rate and airspace capacity Where and when MET information is needed (decision points) Agreed performance metrics Where efforts are most likely to result in most needed improvements They also warn of systems without human intervention such as weather computers talking directly to flight planning software. Collaborative decision making requires human intervention capabilities. They also voice the view that small FIRs need to be integrated into larger scale forecast areas since the best remaining alternate might well be in an adjacent country. 2.2.6.5 In my view IATA and IAOPA should also be consulted since both ATM and MET often are the target of customer pressure where airlines dispatch aircraft into conditions that are clearly marginal. However, if ATM and MET come up with something that provides a benefit to the customer they will in all likelihood accept it. Also MARIE-PT has a political arm that includes experts from IATA and IFALPA, while the people talking to ATMRPP are mostly scientists. 2.2.6.6 In order for MET to be considered a serious player in ATM, it is necessary for them to commit themselves. If all you get when asking them for an assessment on when the fog is going to lift so you can lift the arrival restrictions is I don t know then nobody is going to ask them very often. The answer is that they are willing to commit themselves but they would need to develop corresponding decision support tools, and they would need to know where it was most useful to deploy them. 2.2.6.7 MARIE-PT has also looked at 4D-trajectories. The further ahead you look the larger the box of uncertainty around an aircraft gets. Calculating weather into the trajectory might make that box even larger. So the aim must be to (a) reduce the size of the box and (b) find out how many boxes can be within a given block if airspace at any given time based on the calculated box size. 2.2.6.8 It is proposed to develop ICAO provisions providing a requirement framework for MET B.4.1.4 /Page 5 of 7
products and guidance to ATM service providers on the selection of MET products from a clear ATM Performance Based Operations perspective. Elements that need to be considered are: identification of performance based operations components that require MET information services); required level of standardisation of MET information (services) for performance based operations, and; a required minimum set of MET information (services) to be published in relevant ICAO documents. Eurocontrol has offered to serve as focal point for the interaction between the ATMRPP and MARIE-PT. The document should be ready by March 2014 to be of any use to the MET people. ICAO strongly suggested that IFALPA and IFATCA should assist Eurocontrol since day to day experience with weather impact on operations is essential. IFACTA should consider providing a dedicated representative, preferably someone with flow management experience. 2.2.6.9 At a later stage, the cooperation of ATMRPP and MET will also encompass defining what kind of actual met information should be uplinked to cockpits in real-time, such as RVR and wind information during a CAT III approach. 2.3 Interaction with other ICAO working groups and the outside world 2.3.1 The interaction with the MARIE-PT shows a growing dilemma the ATMRPP is facing. On one hand, the Panel has been criticised within ICAO for producing only Manuals and other guidance material, but no Standards and Recommended Practices. Most of what ATMRPP has dealt with is long term concept work, which essentially has been ATMRPP expertise. In order to eventually come up with SARPS, that long term work needs to continue but there also needs to be a panel, group or whatever that support current work and issues too. It remains unclear how ICAO will solve this problem. The three five-day meetings per year will clearly not be enough once FF-ICE/1 and the interaction will MARIE- PT really get going. 2.3.2 The pace at which the Panel and ICAO as a whole are moving is much too slow. Industrydriven and government-funded research projects such as SESAR and NEXTGEN are proceeding much faster and are trying to set standards that ICAO will probably simply have to accept at some stage. 2.3.3 Some States, most notably the U.S., are also trying to set standards through the Panel that at the same time are already being shared with their national industry partners so these can get a jump start at new ATM developments. I do acknowledge that they provide the majority of the working papers and also the most manpower to the Panel so they are responsible for much of the Panel s progress. Still, the rest of the world have to make sure that they are not left behind, and yet the only states that voice concerns on the Panel are Australia and Eurocontrol, the latter of course trying to protect SESAR work. All other States at least on this Panel do not seem to care. They seem to be happy that someone else does the work for them. 3. Conclusions 3.1 The introduction of FF-ICE/1 will be a major change to the way flight plan information is handled today. The concept should be evaluated by IFATCA. 3.2 System Wide Information Sharing and associated concepts are a key requirement for future ATM performance but so far there is a lot of uncertainty about the implementation of such concepts. B.4.1.4 /Page 6 of 7
3.3 IFATCA should contribute to MARIE-PT and the eventual creation of a PANS-MET. IFACTA should consider providing a dedicated representative, preferably someone with flow management experience. 3.4 ATMRPP is torn between long-term concept work and short term requirements to assist other ICAO groups. - END B.4.1.4 /Page 7 of 7