EU to Launch New Air Traffic Management Plan to Handle Doubling of Air Traffic

BRUSSELS, Belgium_The European Union plans Thursday to unveil details of an ambitious plan for a €20-billion (US$23.4-billion) air traffic management system to help Europe cope with an expected doubling in the number of flights over the next 15 years.

Dubbed "Sesame," the plan aims to make flights safer, less polluting and easier for air traffic controllers to monitor.

European air routes would gradually be reorganized over the next 15 years so that air space and traffic flows are managed through state-of-the-art technologies, EU spokesman Stefaan Rynck said Wednesday.

Sesame's startup phase, which would run through 2007, is budgeted cost €60 million (US$70.06 million) and provide jobs for 200 people. The subsequent "validation and deployment" phases - running from 2008 to 2020 - would cost some €300 million (US$350.3 million) a year, Rynck said.

The funding for Sesame will come from the EU's long-term science and research budget. It does not need to be approved by EU governments.

The EU estimates Sesame's economic trickle-down effect to total some €60 billion (US$70 billion) and generate an estimated 200,000 jobs, while cutting down on airplane noise and pollution and stepping up safety.

Europe's aviation industry has long complained that, in an age of broadband communications, air traffic management still relies on technologies that can be 50 years old while traffic has more than doubled since then.

Ground-to-air traffic control communication still is done on congested VHF radio frequencies, and air routes are organized according to ground-based, 1950s-era navigation devices.

Also, Europe's air traffic control operations are divided along national boundaries.

"Virtually no automation has been introduced in air traffic management decision-making, which puts a particularly heavy pressure on the shoulders of air traffic controllers," says a recent EU report on the state of the aviation industry in Europe.

The Sesame program will bring together EU governments, airports, airlines and air navigation service providers and Eurocontrol, the European organization for the safety of air Navigation.

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