"ENGINEER THE CNS/ATM REVOLUTION"

"Our industry must stop going forward at the pace of the slowest - or it will first grind to a halt and then regress," said IATA Director General Pierre J. Jeanniot, addressing the Global Navcom Symposium in Vancouver, Canada, 13 June.

Jeanniot was referring to the slow pace of progress in implementing a world-wide system of satellite-based air navigation which has the potential to double the number of movements in any "CNS/ATM airspace" in a given period of time, independent of direct ground-based control.

The Director General said that the situation could be summed up as "déja-vu" all over again. "We are meeting after a pause of 20 months, spent killing the millennium bug. The industry is now ready to confront other challenges with its IT house well in order…but, despite some good regional advances in CNS/ATM, our industry has been incapable of developing a coherent business plan on how to go ahead with the system. There is no real strategic understanding among the airlines of the technological and financial implications of the changes involved - or of the options that are available."

"At the same time, many states have not declared their plans. So - let us throw our weight behind the ones who are ready to go forward. The satellite networks are here. The aircraft are equipped. Let us put the ground stations (for air traffic management, rather than control) where there is the political will to do so. Let us engineer the revolution that is so badly needed!"