Aeropath wins CANSO Global Safety Achievement Award 2022

Geneva, 9 March 2023 – CANSO has announced the winner of the CANSO Global Safety Achievement Award 2022. The award recognises the individuals, teams, or companies that have made a significant contribution to aviation safety in the past 12 months.

The winner is the Aeronautical Information Management (AIM) team of Aeropath Ltd, a subsidiary of Airways International, for their Flight Advisor tool.

Flight Advisor is an interactive web-based mapping tool that improves situational awareness and enhances safety for pilots operating at low levels in uncontrolled airspace. Developed by Aeropath, New Zealand’s Aeronautical Information service in collaboration with its customer the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF), Flight Advisor is used by the military and is open to all civilian operators across New Zealand. Flight Advisor provides RNZAF pilots and civilian operators with an awareness of traffic and potential hazards when operating at low level, giving pilots operating in this uncontrolled airspace the information they need to keep themselves and other low level airspace users safe.

As Osman Saafan, Chair of the CANSO Safety Standing Committee commented: “As in the previous years, we were happy to again see such a large number of nominations, all of them of exceptionally high quality. In a tight competition and against the background of challenging criteria, the jury unanimously decided in favor of the web-based mapping tool Flight Advisor. I would like to congratulate the Aeropath team on this great achievement. Safety in aviation is not given, it must be assured every day. The many nominations might remind us how many people globally use their expertise and creativity every day to successfully contribute to our mission of safety in aviation.”

As Matt Day, Aeropath’s Manager Aeronautical Information Management, said: “Flight Advisor is the result of a significant team effort between the RNZAF and Aeropath. The Flight Advisor concept was developed when the RNZAF approached Aeropath to help them address the problem of better informing low level operators of hazards, and making operators aware of each other when in the same area of airspace.”

“Our team is extremely proud to receive this award, amongst an impressive list of shortlisted organisations. We’re thrilled that we’ve been able to create something that is so simple to use, and delivers such tangible safety benefits to New Zealand’s aviators,” Mr Day added.