SESAR Deployment Boss Upbeat on European ATM Progress

The Single European Sky (SES) project to reform the management of the continent’s airspace remains the subject of much debate. Airlines decry the lack of progress of the regulatory framework, which has been on the books for more than 20 years, while several EU member states and air navigation service providers’ unions remain reluctant to create real “open skies” across the bloc.

However, Mariagrazia La Piscopia, the executive director of the SESAR Deployment Manager, the EU’s public-private partnership that drives the modernization of Europe’s air traffic management, remains upbeat. She asserts that, despite the political wrangling, she has seen real progress in the adoption of concepts and technologies in air traffic management to make air transport in Europe more efficient, resilient, and sustainable.

La Piscopia spoke with AIN ahead of the Paris Air Show.

The Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) project began in 2004 as the technological pillar of the Single European Sky. The SESAR Deployment Manager (SDM) followed in 2014. What achievements have you witnessed?

I would say that, looking at things from the SDM deployment-based perspective, SESAR is working well, and we are making remarkable progress toward our objectives. In cooperation with our stakeholders, we completed over 260 of the 340 projects to modernize air traffic in Europe, accounting for 75 percent of the projects defined under the so-called Common Project 1 (CP1) regulation.

We are talking €2.7 billion [$2.9 billion] of investments mobilized so far since 2015, consisting of €1.3 billion of grants and €1.4 billion of industry investment. Bringing these projects into operation is delivering tangible benefits. The currently completed projects are projected to save 112 million minutes of flight time, 1.1 million tonnes of fuel, and 3.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. In monetary terms, the 260 completed projects are projected to save €5.6 billion by 2030. This will increase to a total benefit of €15.7 billion when the whole CP1 will be implemented.

As always, old and new challenges are still ahead of us, and there is still room to work better together and ensure ATM modernization goes on, and that ATM becomes more effective than ever.

Airlines maintain that a truly reformed ATM system could help cut CO₂ emissions by 10 percent. Some put this figure even at 15 percent. ATC unions dispute this. Who is right?

There is indeed a debate on the specific contribution that ATM can bring to decarbonization: estimates range from 6-7 percent to 11 percent of the CO₂ emissions, and calculations might differ in their details. Besides the specific figures, there is potential that comes from more efficient ATM operations. We have some technologies in our basket that definitely help.

Let’s take our free route airspace [FRA] concept that allows airlines to freely plan a route between a defined entry point and a defined exit point, subject, of course, to airspace availability and subject to air traffic control. I really want to stress that this is already available basically everywhere since a few months, or even a few years, including in Italy, Germany, the UK, Spain, Poland, and the whole Scandinavian region. 

The next step is to implement full cross-border FRA in Europe. The mandatory deadline for the CP1 regulation is December 2025. It is an ambitious program, and I am confident we will bring cross-border FRA into 60 percent of the European airspace well before 2025. Cross-border FRA implementation is poised to save at least 10 million tonnes of CO₂ in the EU by 2030, and this could even be a conservative estimation. This is the equivalent of the emissions produced by around 500,000 flights in Europe, and the whole ATM community—both the airlines and the ATCOs— are aware of the importance of this.

Did the European Green Deal and a wider societal focus on aviation’s impact on climate prompt a change of SESAR’s priorities?

I like to point out that sustainability and a greener ATM have always been among the priorities of the Single European Sky, and especially of SESAR. As SDM, we have within our coordinated initiatives many projects that are specifically targeting the reduction of aviation carbon footprint and that already delivered improvements in recent years. A flight that counts on CP1 technologies can save fuel throughout its whole path (taxi-out, cruise, arrival, taxi-in), for up to 600 kg of CO₂ emissions (189 kg of fuel) on average. The average flight excess fuel burn today is around 340 kg, resulting in around 1,000 kg of unnecessary CO₂ in the atmosphere. It means that technologies from CP1 and coordinated by SDM alone can save up to around 60 percent of the excess emissions produced by an average flight today.

Last year was a bad year in terms of flight delays and Russia’s aggression in Ukraine will likely continue to restrict airspace capacity for commercial flights. What can be done to increase ATM capacity in Europe under those circumstances?

If we want to make ATM more modern, fit for future challenges, and supporting additional capacity, we need to make it more digital as fast as we can.

We have already progressed in the last decades: digital systems or partially automated tools are now available across Europe in every tower or ACC but a further step forward is necessary. An acceleration towards Data Link operations and Trajectory Based Operations are essential if we want to minimize the impact of disruptive events, increase traffic, and keep the focus on CO₂ reduction.

You were the first woman to be nominated to lead a SESAR partnership. Why is gender equality in ATM so difficult to achieve?

One of the most significant barriers is the perception that aviation is a male-dominated industry, which makes it more difficult for women to see themselves as part of it. But it is clearly not only a perception. There are companies in the ATM sector that are mainly led by men and where also 80 percent of the managers are male. This is unacceptable in 2023.

Aviation companies and organizations should actively promote gender diversity and ensure that women have equal opportunities for career advancement and leadership roles. Additionally,  it is important to increase visibility and representation of women in aviation by highlighting their accomplishments and contributions to the industry.

Protection is increasing—made in the U.S., made in China, made in the EU. How is this affecting SESAR’s work and choice of technologies?

The concerns about globalization and localization are legitimate but aviation is by definition a worldwide industry where we need to ensure that people can fly following the same rules everywhere around the globe.

From a SESAR deployment perspective, our role also addresses the assistance, advice, and support we provide to the European Commission in its international activities aimed at achieving global interoperability of ATM systems. In this framework, the support of SDM is focused on the activities performed under the framework of the EU-US Memorandum of Cooperation, in particular addressing the work of the Deployment Committee and cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration.