PROCEDURES, AIRSPACE & AIRPORTS CONFERENCE
ROYAL AERONAUTICAL SOCIETY, LONDON, 2001

Over 45 people from Civil Aviation Authorities, Air Navigation Service Providers and Airport Authorities attended the above event. With delegates from the UK and Europe, and as far a field as South Africa, Taiwan and Latvia. This mix of industry experts made for an interesting day and provided a good opportunity for networking.

	(l-r) Derek Pake, Head of ATC Operational Support, NATS; Mike Wildin, Manager AP1, DAP; Nils Lundström, Technical Director Wavionix and Patrick Aisher, Chief Executive Wavionix.

Chief Executive Officer of Wavionix Software, Patrick Aisher, welcomed the delegates and made a brief introduction on the importance for industry stakeholders to have an informal forum in which to discuss the critical issues facing them today.

He went onto comment that the fundamental concepts of en-route air traffic management need to be changed. The historic dependence upon a ground controller to aircraft communication link should be progressively replaced by a system based upon allocated safe flight paths of "tubes of flights" of protected airspace.

Mike Wildin, Manager Terminal Airspace, Directorate of Airspace Policy (DAP), then took the floor to make a presentation on the "Regulation of Instrument Approach Procedures". In DAP's new role as the airspace regulator for the CAA, its mission statement is "to be the most competent, respected, open and fair regulatory regime, and to champion the sustainable interests of air travellers and airspace users".

Wildin stated that; " the design of IFPs was considered to be service provision and therefore incompatible with DAP's new role as an airspace regulator. Accordingly, work was underway to devolve the IFP design function out to industry with the finished procedures being subject to regulation by DAP staff".

(l-r) Ian Ramsay, Chairman IAPE; Veronica Thompson and Stephen Gray, Coventry Airport and Wg Cmdr Hill, Eurocontrol

All IAP's submitted to DAP will be studied from the perspective of Regulation, Safety and Competency. Wildin went on to talk about the main objectives, which he summarised from a statement taken from the Directions from the government to the CAA: to develop, promulgate, monitor and enforce POLICY with the CAA's continued commitment to a proper navigation infrastructure for the UK.

Beat Zimmermann, Technical Consultant for Wavionix Software Ltd, gave his presentation on "Designing Effective Procedures in Environmentally Sensitive Areas". He explained that conflict of interests had created environmental sensitivity. However, he went onto say that environmental sensitivity was not just about noise and pollution issues, it also directly related to the quality of ATC, NAVAID coverage, effective procedures design, airport management, terrain, military areas and natural preservation areas.

Although the procedure designer is faced with a much more complex task due to noise, pollution, congested airspace etc… The designer must not lose sight of his main objective, which is safety.

RNAV will help to meet the safety requirements, whilst still being flexible
enough to cater for other environmental problems such as noise. A noise
sensitive area can be avoided and the target safety level can be maintained, which was not previously the case with conventional navigation.

Zimmerman explained that the job of the procedures designer today was to provide more solutions to environmental problems. It is in this area where RNAV procedures will make an enormous difference because of their precision. This factor will enable more procedures to be designed within the same amount of airspace.

Derek Pake, Head of ATC Operational Support Scottish & Oceanic Area Control Centre, National Air Traffic Services (NATS). Pake presented case histories focusing on the problem of delays and air traffic congestion in the Scottish TMA in the early 1990's where traffic growth was at 5% with only 36 air traffic movements per hour in a complex route structure. He described how NATS addressed this major problem, which resulted in a significant achievement in the mid 90's resulting in an increase in volume to 72 movements per hour, with a more efficient flight profile, increased airspace volume and almost a complete reduction in delays.

Keith Charman (right) of NATS with Derek McLauchlan of CANSO

The second case history focused on environmental issues within the London TMA. Pake explained how a combination of working with all interested parties and the development of new procedures design overcame the existing problem.

He also touched on NATS' new role and their separation from the CAA as the airspace regulator, and how this will affect the way in which NATS works in the future.

Thomas Buchanan, Head of PANS OPS Department, Skyguide, gave an unscheduled presentation on P-RNAV.

Buchanan explained that the problem with precision RNAV is that there is a huge confusion about who can do what, when and how.
The design criteria might now be ready, but to date, there are no certification criteria for equipment, nor for pilots. The integrity of the data used cannot be validated, although this is a requirement for the use of P-RNAV.

The problem might occur that when an airport implements nothing but PRNAV
procedures, they might lose a lot of planes operating there.
However, this might prove to be the trigger for airlines to get moving and install PRNAV equipment in all their aircraft.

Buchanan used the example of two aircraft, which looked exactly the same, but only one of them was PRNAV certified. In the case of a last minute aircraft change this could cause a problem (and congestion on the radio frequency etc…) because ATC would not know if the aircraft in question is PRNAV certified or not.

	Rob Lund, Leeds-Bradford Airport and Gordon MacDonald, DAP.

In conclusion he explained the role of the Eurocontrol TARA Working Group, which is to provide harmonisation of these concepts to allow a unique way to a common understanding. The requirements from Eurocontrol for the development of new procedures by procedure designers are that they should be able to design procedures with adequate protection, to verify the flyability, codeability, and the integrity of a procedure.

Graeme Clark, Operations Information Manager, Easyjet. Posed a series of questions in his paper on "What airlines would hope to achieve from RNAV procedures".

Clark explained the background to the easyjet operation, which is founded on the concept of making flying affordable. He explained that safety is their most important concern. Schedule reliability is also a critical factor for all their operations.

easyjet's fleet currently has sophisticated capabilities for FMS, RNAV, RVSM etc. but these, generally, are not being used by existing ground systems therefore providing no additional benefits for this substantial investment.

The London TMA demand is high and means that there is limited growth for Luton, easyjet's hub. He urged the need to "de-couple" the airports within the London TMA and that RNAV and RVSM could provide the potential solution.

He went onto explain that by extending out to the boundary of the TMA new possibilities could be opened up by reducing ATC workload, increasing capacity and finally providing returns on their investment

Clark summarised by reflecting on the importance of moving forward with RNAV to maintain safety whilst realising greater airspace capacity and reducing delays.

Patrice Bouëdo (left), with Daniel Shiue of the CAA Taiwan

David Gleave, Chief ATC Investigator, Aviation Hazard Analysis, focused his presentation on the Legal Liabilities and Risk Management for airport operators. He outlined the importance of establishing what are the safeguarding hazards and their consequences in the airport environment. He then went on to explain how the risk, which is an integral part of any airport operation, can be managed and the importance of being completely aware of the legal and regulatory standards which now apply.

Via a series of case histories, Gleave illustrated how crucial it is to identify hazard analysis and establish a course of risk assessment and application and what can be regarded as acceptable risk.

Outlining common failures, he further emphasised the point that safety by compliance is merely risk management, and does not necessarily mean that the operator has taken a global look at its operations to assess the risk implications in full. In a criminal investigation safety by compliance would be found insufficient.

In conclusion, it is therefore important that the operator's criteria for risk management are reasonable, that the local hazardous scenarios have been checked thoroughly, that the target level of safety is deemed appropriate and that the entire process has been documented.

John Abramson, LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae. His presentation dealt with the legal liability faced by airport operators resulting in lapses in safety management, and the effect of hazards and accidents. He illustrated, via a series of international legal cases, the different applications of civil liability "Contract" and "The Law of Tort" for the airport operator.

He also referred to "Injuries to Persons", which clearly illustrated how important it is to define where the operator's responsibilities end and where the airlines responsibilities begin when using that operator's facilities.

Abramson then went on to explain the "Liability of the Regulator" and "Criminal Liability", whereby he explained that recently, airport operators have undergone a process of corporatisation, which exposes both the company and its directors. In the UK, corporate governance has developed to the extent that company directors can face criminal liability in a variety of ways.

Furthermore, the shift towards finding corporations liable for breaches of criminal law has been brought about by more active and visible enforcement of safety regulations. The offence of "Manslaughter" and "Corporate Manslaughter", demonstrates how the law has developed since the 1960's. Abramson cited the case of the Herald of Free Enterprise (a passenger ferry) in 1987, which resulted in the death of 190 passengers. Manslaughter charges were brought against P & O European Ferries and seven employees.

He finished his presentation on the Future Development of Corporate Criminal Responsibility for Killing. A new statute in British Law, currently known as the Involuntary Homicide Bill, has been drafted. This bill deals with a company's liability for manslaughter by defining corporate manslaughter. Although there is no set date for this bill to be passed through Parliament, the Government firmly recommends that the offence of corporate killing becomes law.

The consultation paper on corporate killing for this bill is entirely consistent with the current view of human factors as an organisational issue rather that a personal issue.
The introduction of safety management systems has led to a significant increase in the safety of employees. Dealing with human factors has, therefore become a management issue.