In the aviation sector, change is fast and deep for ANSPs. How can we ensure that safety remains the essential mission of the business?

Indeed, ANSPs must face the same economic challenges, the same demands to boost capacity and the same technological progress that the rest of the aviation industry faces. We have to align our strategies with these challenges. It is important to recognise the interdependencies between various objectives and conditions and actively work on developments. Only then can we fulfil our most important mission of ensuring safety - at least at the same level or possibly even at a better level. A crucial factor here is an effective Safety Management System (SMS). This ensures that our operational personnel are always able to carry out their duties and deliver air navigation services safely. In my eyes, the SMS is a key enabler of safety. In concrete terms, we will continue to need a robust SMS with a company-wide safety policy, a safety culture that is really lived, as well as ambitious safety goals. All of these help us to reliably identify potential risks and implement countermeasures early on.

Safety is what the ATM system achieves every day anew and not something that the system contains within itself as a matter of course.

At the European level, the key performance indicators for safety support our efforts. For the third reference period (RP3), it is important to define appropriate and performance-oriented indicators which combine lagging indicators (outcome-based) and leading indicators (process-based). This combination should also be able to account for the interdependencies between the KPAs. The KPA Safety should be assigned a counterbalancing control function for other KPAs (capacity, cost-efficiency, environment). This is what I am pursuing at the safety committees of CANSO and EASA, by the way, with excellent support from my Italian colleagues.

We are also going to have to meet the demands of digitisation and IT security (cybersecurity) and do this in a similar way to what we already do in the area of safety. Our Security Management System (SeMS) was created in response to this issue.

ENAV is now listed on the stock exchange with external shareholders. DFS, through its subsidiary DFS Aviation Services, is going to provide aerodrome and approach services at Gatwick and Edinburgh airports. NATS and Ferrovial have made a joint company, FerroNATS, to provide ANS at Spanish airports. This is a fairly competitive time. How will it be possible to maintain the historical mutual cooperation to ensure the safety performance and continuous improvement among ANSPs?

Gone are the days when virtually every European State had a monopoly over its air navigation services. One by one, everyone has now heard the wake-up call. A healthy amount of competition and benchmarking ought to be good for increasing long-term safety in European airspace. As regards our commercial business, DFS and its subsidiaries only bid for contracts where the conditions will allow for a smooth transition and where it will be possible to provide services reliably and safely. That is our highest priority.

A key aspect of the cooperation you mentioned is at the international level (e.g. CANSO or EUROCONTROL). In addition, good European and national regulations are needed. I am convinced that this is in the interest of all stakeholders and that we have to, and will, continue this excellent exchange and collaboration. From the European point of view, we can only reach our goals in the long term when we work together. With respect to safety, it is totally inacceptable for ANSPs to act against each other instead of working with each other.

EU regulation production appears to be a new issue for the ANSPs. How important is a strong representation of the ANSPs’ position via CANSO?

The sheer volume of European regulations and their incredible level of detail in the past few years mean there is a danger of being overzealous or overdoing regulation. We are calling for a more consistent, harmonised and less prescriptive approach to regulation. I would like to refer to the CANSO Vision 2020 that we worked on together and our call for better regulation. I believe that we need a strong and well-managed advocacy group that is capable of proactively and effectively representing our interests at all relevant organisations such as ICAO and EASA.

CANSO made it possible for us to obtain two seats in the new EASA Stakeholder Advisory Body (SAB). As the elected Vice-Chairman of the SAB, it is my goal to play an active role in promoting safety in cooperation with other aviation stakeholders on behalf of our organisations and thus our customers. The prerequisite for this is to coordinate the positions beforehand, e.g. in the CANSO Europe Safety Group and the CANSO EASA Task Force.

Some new issues, such as drone and UTM or Remote TWR implementation, are very challenging. Taking into account that ANSPs’ professional staff remain a key element of the ATM system, how can we take the human factor in due consideration?

At DFS, one of our strategic goals is to be able to effectively and safely control increased complexity and increasing automation.

To ensure safety and be a success at highly complex and safety-critical organisations, it is necessary to be able to adapt flexibly to constantly changing conditions. The air traffic management system relies on human beings to achieve the level of adaptability needed. This is why DFS uses a human-centred approach to its automation strategy. This means that automation supports operational personnel and lowers their workload. However, complex and unexpected situations are still dealt with by human beings. Developing our training course "Expect the unexpected" is one way in which we are working on this topic.

The human-centred approach is thus at the centre of every system development at DFS. Our methods, such as the user-centred approach and the DFS Design Process Guide, support this approach as well.