Making seamless operations a reality

Armin Beirle, CANSO Operations Standing Committee (OSC) Chair and Head of ACC Langen, DFS, explores the highlights of the forthcoming CANSO Global ATM Operations Conference 2019.

This year celebrates the 75th birthday of the Chicago Convention, the foundation of ICAO and its system of standards enabling international air transport. Aviation is a fascinating industry enabling the exchange of cultures, ideas, experiences and goods on a global basis. For me as the new Chair of the OSC it is a very great honour to invite you to the upcoming CANSO Global ATM Operations Conference 2019 and be part of the team.

The Conference will commence by looking at the globe from the perspective of an astronaut. Gerhard Thiele who has participated in a space shuttle mission will provide a keynote speech about his experience as an astronaut and the global cooperation involved in space missions.

This exciting keynote will be followed by an executive panel with top-management representatives from airlines, airports, ANSPs, ICAO and suppliers to discuss how we can make seamless operations a reality by removing silos in the industry.

On the second day of the conference we will continue the theme of enhancing cooperation in ATM during three expert panels. We will look into airspace management and how to achieve a ‘seamless sky’. The second panel will deal with data and information networks as well as flow management. Finally, a group of experienced aviation executives from all regions will discuss how we could remove barriers in the cooperation of different cultures, organisations and professions.

Following the panel discussions we will have a workshop to summarise the main findings of the panels and translate these into concrete proposed actions which I am very keen to follow-up in adjusting the work programme of the CANSO Operations Standing Committee, together with the stakeholders we bring together in this conference.

On the last day we are invited to visit the Operations Centre of the European Space Agency in Darmstadt.

The conference is hosted by DFS in our headquarters in Langen, close to Frankfurt. We invite all guests to a dinner in Frankfurt in the evening of the first day. Between the sessions there will be ample opportunities for networking and we also provide space for an exhibition.

This is a new format for the CANSO Operations Conference as it involves all partners of the air transport system and we would like to identify opportunities to work together with our system partners to achieve more seamless operations across the globe which – as seen from space – only has man-made borders.