You have a long experience in aviation, can we ask how you started your career and what is your view of the aviation sector today?

Since I was very young I wanted to become a leader in the aviation industry. I started out as a private pilot right after high school. As I realized that being a pilot alone would not be enough to achieve my goals, I made the decision to build up my flying time while attending university. Getting a degree in industrial engineering would turn me into a person with certain management skills, which I finally shaped with an MBA degree from Insead Business School (Fontainebleau, France).

Over time I logged the necessary flying ours and, in 1994, I applied for a pilot’s job at Austral Líneas Aéreas and I was hired. What followed was a 25-year career as airline pilot, most of it as captain and flying instructor. I doubled as management consultant for one of the most well-known consulting firms and was able to gain considerable expertise in corporate advisory. In the last few years before I came to EANA I was advisor to the board of the Aerolíneas Argentinas Group.

Currently, I view the aviation sector as evolving at a faster pace than ever before. And while the impressive levels of safety the industry has attained over the last few decades may appear enviable – perhaps other industries see things as such – they result from the hard work of thousands of individuals firmly committed to ensuring safe operations globally. Therefore, we at EANA have made safety our core value. Of course, we had other concerns to address urgently when the company was founded four years ago. Capacity constraints, infrastructure obsolescence, inefficiency and poor service standards required heavy investment, intensive training and a cultural change. We have turned the corner now.

EANA is one of the most advanced ANSPs in Latin America, what operational and technical challenges are high in your agenda?

One of our company goals is to become a world-class air navigation service provider. When EANA was constituted in 2016, air navigation service was transferred to the company with the need for upgrades across the board. Correspondingly, we are implementing a whole set of initiatives.

On the operational side, we have been introducing PBN technology across the country – the eigth largest in the world by surface area – and will be reaching 85% of commercial runways offering that option, as per ICAO guidelines, by year’s end. Also, we introduced ATFM – a field in which we are regional leaders together with our colleagues in Brazil - and are increasing radar control service to four IFRs, with the aim of providing it in the five regions by end 2020.

We are also working hard to reduce ATC-related delays and recently launched the project to redesign the BAIRES TMA (based on PBN technology), which is our busiest terminal area. The TMA centers around Buenos Aires and covers the country’s most active airports and aerodromes, in addition to military airfields. Incidentally, Italy’s IDS is part of the international consortium which won the contract to do the redesign work. That consortium also includes Indra's consultancy arm ALG, Germany's DSF Aviation Services and US-based Tetra Tech.

On the technical side, we are currently upgrading our main Data Center replacing navaids country-wide including 11 ILSs (with higher category ratings); 14 VORs, which are still standard in our civil aviation; putting into service a new secondary radar which will offer mode S and ADS-B next year; modernising and upgrading another 22 radars in order to bring them up to the same standards; replacing three primary radars (with secondary radars embebed in the system, in addition to a met channel) at our most congested areas; and injecting new technology into Ezeiza – Ministro Pistarini.

Ezeiza is our main international gateway, which is fog-prone in the early morning hours when most long- haul traffic arrives. We have installed HD cameras at the control tower in order to cover blind spots as massive terminal building expansion works continue and will be fitting the new control tower under construction once the main structural work is completed next year.

Meanwhile, we have installed our first AATAS system at La Plata aerodrome, south of Buenos Aires. It is now in its trial period and we plan to buy more such gear to supplement our aeronautical information service at low-density aerodromes. Also, we plan to introduce digital towers and, in addition, we are revamping a set of two ACC trainer devices and buying a new ATC simulator.

Innovation is certainly playing a key role in the aviation sector. Remote Towers, drones and satellite technologies represent key areas of work for ANSPs worldwide, what is your experience and view for the future?

As a pilot, innovation has always been part of my career; each new airplane type brought with it the need to learn and master new technology. Therefore, I view innovation as a distinctive feature of aviation. A lot of work goes into developing and harnessing new technology that can make life easier for all of us. Still, innovation also brings with it new challenges, especially in human factors. This should not deter us from embracing new technology. The challenge is to use technology, especially automation, in its exact measure – to keep the system in balance. Digital tower technology, to cite but one, is showing its virtues here in Europe and we hope to introduce it in Argentina too.

However, I see drones differently. Although they can be employed to enhance airport surface checks and even nav-aid checks, what we have seen lately in the airport environment has become more of a security concern. We are of course following developments in airport protection against the threat of drones with great interest. We must not allow any loony to interrupt airport operations by posing a security hazard. From the ATM perspective, ANSPs have been accepting drones as new entrants of the airspace, integrating them to their system. This situation deserves to be analyzed in depth.

What are EANA key priorities for the future at national and international level?

We have made tremendous advancements, but we are still a long way off from saying we have overcome our operational and technological challenges, although our work in this regard is nothing short of relentless. Once we have achieved that point, my view is that we should use part of our revenue - which we fully invest in the system nowadays – to compensate customers for service inconveniences and contingencies.

At the international level, we have made cooperation and integration into key entries of our vocabulary. Together with Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay we laid the foundations for cross-border cooperation back in 2017. Since then, Brazil has been very supportive of our transformation process, helping us establish our own airspace design department and introduce ATFM.

Also, we redesigned a terminal area in northern Argentina in order to solve an operational problem across the border in Paraguay and we are also sharing radar information with them so we can see traffic before it enters our airspace and vice-versa. Furthermore, we have invited Uruguay to take part in the BAIRES TMA redesign, as most of the TMA borders with our sister nation to the East.

That said, our international side goes way beyond cross-border cooperation. EANA is an active member of CANSO and proud to hold the vice-presidency of CADENA, the CANSO ATFM Data Exchange Network for the Americas. Finally, we have formalized cooperation agreements with several world-class ANSPs like ENAV in order to share best practices and other operational expertise.