Remarks of CANSO Director General, Jeff Poole, at the CANSO Asia-Pacific Conference, 5-7 May 2014 Good morning and welcome to the CANSO Asia-Pacific Conference 2014 in Colombo, the capital and commercial hub of Sri Lanka. We welcome over 140 delegates from around 25 countries, not just from Asia-Pacific but also from other parts of the world. I would like to give a very special thank you to our Guest of Honour, The Honorable Piyankara Jayaratne MP, Minister of Civil Aviation of Sri Lanka, for gracing the occasion, and also to the Deputy Minister, Mr Gitajana Gunawardena. We appreciate very much your support and personal participation. Events like this cannot happen without our various sponsors and their generous and invaluable support, so I would like to thank them all and in particular our lead sponsor, Airways New Zealand. But I would like to give very special recognition to Airport & Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Ltd. for kindly hosting this Conference. I am very pleased that we are joined today by AASL s Chairman, Mr. Prasanna J. Wickramasuriya. Before starting my formal remarks, I would like, on behalf of all here, to thank AASL for an amazing reception yesterday. Minister, we were treated to a wonderful display of Sri Lankan culture and entertainment. But most importantly we were shown the true spirit of welcome and friendship of Sri Lanka. Thank you again, AASL. On the subject of welcomes, when I arrived in Colombo yesterday, there were two welcome desks at the airport one of course for CANSO, the other for the World Conference of Youth. The fact that the World Conference of Youth is taking place here demonstrates a strong commitment by Sri Lanka to a promising and vibrant future. But so too does the CANSO Asia-Pacific Conference! Why? Because aviation is such an important catalyst and facilitator of economic growth and social development. Many people think of aviation in terms of its physical infrastructure airports and aircraft but air traffic management is a vital and integral part even if it is, and should be, largely invisible. Following my discussions with the Minister and Vice Minister this morning, I have no doubt that the Sri 1
Lankan Government appreciates fully the importance and value of aviation and air traffic management. The importance of aviation in the Asia-Pacific Region Last week, it was my pleasure to participate as a Board member of the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) in the launch of its new report on the vital contribution that aviation makes to economies around the world: Aviation: Benefits Beyond Borders. Over 58 million jobs are supported by aviation worldwide. Aviation has an economic impact of $2.4 trillion, equivalent to 3.4% of GDP. If aviation were a country, it would be the 21st in terms of GDP. Here in Asia- Pacific, aviation is vital: it supports 24 million jobs and $516 billion in GDP. But with passenger numbers set to triple by 2030, the future prosperity of the region will depend on its ability to handle the projected traffic growth. Rising demand without commensurate increases in capacity would adversely impact the safety, efficiency and sustainability of air transport. Today, airspace congestion and delays are already evident in some parts of the region with potential safety implications. So, how will we, the ATM industry, enable safe and sustainable air transport growth in Asia-Pacific? That is the theme of this conference. Today, I would like to focus on the steps needed to ensure that rising air traffic demand is made possible by safe, efficient and cost-effective air traffic management and look at what CANSO is doing in the region to support ANSPs and to achieve our vision of seamless airspace globally. ATM: Enabling Safe and Sustainable Air Transport Growth in Asia-Pacific A few weeks ago I was a speaker at the IATA Operations Conference and much of the talk was about ATM. One of the main concerns of the airlines was that with increasing traffic growth airspace is becoming a scarce resource. IATA s wish list for ATM is very simple and is worth repeating. They said that we need an ATM system that: can manage increasing traffic; makes use of on-board aircraft equipment; sustains safety; and achieves operational efficiency. In its presentation, Singapore Airlines gave some specific requests to drive airspace and route optimisation, calling on IATA and airlines to continue to work with ANSPs to: straighten out airways/tracks; free up more airspace for free flights; open up military airspace when not in use; and establish harmonised and seamless airspace. And Cathay Pacific made it very clear that its top three priorities are fuel burn, fuel burn and fuel burn! What is our response? These airline priorities are absolutely our priorities too. CANSO s objective is to transform global ATM performance. Our vision is of a globally harmonised and interoperable air navigation system capable of delivering a safe, efficient and seamless service. 2
Visions and Conferences like this are very helpful to achieve consensus and to provide strong guidance but, in the real word, we need to deliver. Through CANSO, the ATM industry has agreed a comprehensive strategic framework Vision 2020 with 126 detailed actions, deliverables and timescales at global and regional levels. Importantly, this is not just a strategic aspiration, it provides a strong focus on implementation of challenging but achievable deliverables, creating high added value. Vision 2020 is a very clear commitment from CANSO and the ATM industry to deliver. Vision 2020 in Asia-Pacific I would like to highlight some of the excellent work that the CANSO Asia-Pacific Region is doing with regard to Vision 2020. To advance our key goal of achieving seamless airspace, CANSO and its member ANSPs worked closely with States and industry partners in the ICAO Asia-Pacific Seamless ATM Planning Group. This Group has completed its work and has submitted a draft Asia-Pacific Seamless ATM Plan to ICAO. The CANSO work programme supports the APAC Seamless ATM plan by focusing on the implementation of higher priority ASBU elements that require cross-border collaboration. CANSO s efforts in the region are therefore focused on ADS-B collaboration; air traffic flow management; collaborative decision making (CDM) and en-route performance-based navigation (PBN) harmonisation. These are the higher priority areas where cross-border collaboration on high traffic routes can make an important difference. ASBUs The umbrella under which these and other processes and procedures now sit is ICAO s Aviation System Block Upgrades (ASBUs). The ASBUs give us a road map for planning airspace enhancements to ensure a safe and globally harmonised aviation system over the next 15 years. ICAO has given us the what but industry now needs to provide the how. Our challenge is to help drive the implementation of the ASBU modules and we have been quick to get going: in December, CANSO launched its guide Introduction to the ASBU Modules ; we are driving implementation with regional seminars and practical assistance; and we have just started to deliver vital training courses. The ASBU Implementation Training is being delivered by The MITRE Corporation as a quality service from CANSO. I am very grateful that the Asia-Pacific region is leading the way globally by supporting this training on such a large scale. A special thanks to CAAS, Singapore, who hosted the inaugural course a couple of weeks ago and to Airports Authority of India for hosting the second ASBU Training from 19-23 May in New Delhi. The next course in Asia-Pacific will be in Thailand, kindly hosted by AEROTHAI. If you wish to receive more information on attending or hosting a course, 3
Mimi Dobbs and Gregg Leone from The MITRE Corporation are here at the conference and you can find the course brochure and more materials on the CANSO desk outside. Building CANSO Membership to improve ATM performance across Asia-Pacific These examples demonstrate CANSO s leadership in the region but they also demonstrate the region s leadership in CANSO. We can all be proud of what the region is accomplishing and on its absolute focus on transforming global ATM performance. The region is setting an example for other CANSO regions to emulate. This year we celebrate the sixth anniversary of the opening of the CANSO Asia-Pacific Regional Office in 2008. We started with just four Members but today our regional membership has increased to fourteen Members plus two Members from outside the region. Last year, JCAB and AirNav Indonesia joined CANSO and this year we are particularly pleased to welcome CAA Mongolia, our newest Member in the region. And we are confident that Vietnam and Myanmar will both join very shortly. Globally, CANSO now has a record 84 Member ANSPs as well as 80 Associate Members, which are suppliers and service providers to the ATM industry. The combination of expertise and commitment ensures that CANSO is: the global voice of the ATM industry, speaking with collective agreement and authority on issues that impact the industry; demonstrating industry leadership; and providing value to our Members and other aviation stakeholders. As the global voice of air traffic management, CANSO is in a unique position to promote collaboration and industry best practices among our ANSPs. In particular, CANSO can serve as a useful and effective platform for ANSPs to discuss and undertake cross-border collaboration at airspace interfaces where there are ATM bottle-necks and grey areas. Conclusion To conclude, we have already done much of which we can be proud in the region. We have lead the way with effective trials and implementations but much remains to be done to meet future growth. The best reason for the ATM industry and States to work together is the economic and social benefits that will be secured. ANSPs in the region will continue to work together to implement new procedures, projects and technologies that can be managed at the operational level. But I challenge States to do more to put in place the foundations on which we can build our vision. There are three specific areas, where States have the capability to make a difference. First, better regulation that drives performance positively rather than being complex and too prescriptive. Second, allowing ANSPs to operate like normal businesses with a focus on the customer, performance targets and business-driven approaches. And third, work with each other to break down the current barriers to global harmonisation, in particular with the 4
responsible and effective use of sovereignty and flexible use of airspace between civil and military stakeholders. Only by working closely together across the industry and with States will we achieve seamless airspace globally and transform ATM performance. The recent EU-ASEAN Summit in Singapore made some positive steps towards open skies but what would really be an achievement is for the Asia-Pacific region to show Europe and the rest of the world how to transform ATM on a regional basis into our vision of harmonised, seamless and efficient airspace. That is a challenge that is surely within the grasp of this remarkable region. Thank you. 5