Airport management companies are vitally important participants in the air transportation sector. What role do these organisations play in developing territorial competitivity?

The market scenario is extremely complex. Airport management companies have the task of coordinating all the main actors operating in the aerodrome (e.g. airlines, handlers), using the most effective organisational solutions. Aeroporti di Roma’s objective, as the company managing Italy’s main airport, is to achieve ever-higher levels of safety, quality and operational efficiency in order to excel in the reference international market. And these efforts are obviously rewarded by passenger opinion. According to a survey by ACI - Airport Council International, an international organisation that interviews passengers in about 250 airports globally to assess perceived quality – in the third quarter of 2016, Leonardo da Vinci was placed first among the large airports in the EU for passenger satisfaction. In just one single quarter, the capital’s airport surpassed the previous record. It is the best performance ever recorded in the airport’s history.

ADR and ENAV have always worked together to ensure passenger and airline safety and punctuality. This is true with A-CDM, which is yielding operational benefits and is evolving to APOC (Airport Operations Centre) in Europe. How can we strengthen our collaboration in this field?
The PCP (Pilot Common Project), in preparation for achieving the Single European Sky, has identified the ATM functions to be developed by 2024. Some of these functions call for close collaboration between the Air Navigation Service Provider and the airport management company. In this sense, ADR at ENAV’s side, in taking part in initiatives promoted by the SESAR Deployment Manager. After having implemented A-CDM (Airport - Collaborative Decision Making), which has resulted in important benefits in terms of operational efficiency also for our airport,  we are now working with ENAV in the project to implement the A-SMGCS (Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System) which will enable us to improve operations capacity and safety.
Furthermore, other on-going projects will lead to the implementation of the APOC - Airport Operations Centre, which will enable optimisation of decision-making processes by airport stakeholders, especially Enav and ADR.

One of the hot topics of the moment is the application of Regulation no. 139/2014 in Italy regarding airport certificate conversion. What is ADR doing towards its fulfilment?

ADR has verified conformity with about 1220 technical and infrastructural requisites and 815 process and organisational standards, in an approximately two-year-long programme of preparation for the conversion of the certificate.
The regulations put airport management, as the guarantors of safe functioning of airports, at the centre of the aerodrome system. The management company thus takes on the role of coordinator of private and public entities for operational safety, especially airside.

The key roles in airport management, introduced by the regulations, are defined in the organisational structure, which already caters for Post Holder and Safety Manager – outlined in the current Italian regulations – to which two new key figures, required by European regulations, are added: Monitoring Manager and Training Manager in support of the Accountable Manager.
The latter is responsible for the safe operations of the airport, ensuring availability of adequately qualified and trained personnel, and of financial resources needed to maintain certification requisites and therefore the safety levels defined by European regulations. Regarding the new roles:

•  the Compliance Monitoring Manager is responsible for verifying, through regular audits, the conformity, of the organisation and certain processes of external entities which take place in aircraft movement areas, with regulatory requisites;
• the Training Manager looks after the training regarding rules and best safety practices so that staff involved in airport operations are adequately qualified and aware, to ensure that activities are carried out in total safety.

The other main organisational responsibilities are: Maintenance Post Holder, Apron Post Holder, Terminal Post Holder, Design Post Holder, Safety Manager.
ADR has set up a special task force to prepare for the conversion to achieve compliance with the new regulations. The task force consists of personnel dedicated to verification and modification of processes, company organisation, infrastructures and systems.
The process is in its final phase and is coming to a positive conclusion, which according to current planning will see Fiumicino airport certified according to the new regulations by the end of November.

How are airports, and in particular ADR, tackling the predicted growth in air traffic?

In the last two years, ADR investments have grown enormously. The new boarding area will be inaugurated and made operational by December 2016. It will be connected to the new non-Schengen terminal. The new areas with an additional surface area of about 90,000 square metres will be able to handle a further 6 million passengers/year through 22 new gates. 14 of these will have loading bridges. The largest Airport Mall in Europe will be built on two levels in the boarding area. The investment for these new areas is 390 million euros. This new infrastructure is part of a development plan approved by and closely supervised with Enac’s help. The aim is to meet the expected traffic growth in the coming years, with an airport that meets passengers’ needs and top international quality standards for a landmark airport in the Mediterranean. More passengers also means we need to improve airport performance. The collaboration between ADR and Enav to this end is very strong. In the operations sector, for example, the Aeronautical Data Quality (ADQ) system has been implemented, enabling the management and communication of aeronautical data originating from ADR.
This new programme makes it possible for us to meet the requirements of the international regulations (Reg. EU 73/2010), integrating the software currently used by ADR and Enav, ahead of the deadlines set by the regulations. This and many other ongoing proactive collaboration activities between our two companies enable Italy’s main airport to function in accordance with safety and operational efficiency expected of an airport that is as large and important as Leonardo da Vinci.