Category: Activities

A discussion hosted by FABEC on airspace capacity in Europe was held yesterday at the World Air Traffic Management Congress in Madrid. Representatives of functional airspace blocks in Europe (DANUBE FAB, BALTIC FAB, BLUE MED FAB, FABCE, FABEC) and the Network Manager discussed the views and experiences of passengers. The aim is to share the practices of the difficulties in servicing the increasing traffic and delays.
BULATSA’s position was presented by the Director of European Programmes, Projects and Strategies in BULATSA Mr. Veselin Stoyanov. Participants paid attention to factors, other than the provision of ANS, that have significant impact on airspace capacity. Analyzed was also the need to improve the environmental performance indicator, not only in the deviation from the shortest route, but also the possibility of using airspace and the preferences of airlines, for example an indicator that takes into account the free route compared to the other flight planning possibilities.
Earlier at the Congress was also held a debate on the participation of functional airspace blocks in SESAR solutions, hosted by DANUBE FAB and moderated by James Hanson, Helios. In the discussion took part Mr. Nikolas Warinsko (SDM), Mr. Filip Cornelis (DG MOVE), Mr. Jakob Kepa (SDM) and representatives of DANUBE FAB, BALTIC FAB, BLUE MED FAB, FAB Europe Central and FAB Central Europe.
A main focus was placed on the challenges and opportunities for developing the role of FABs. FAB representatives united in their desire to further develop the FAB concept and to ensure participation in the preparation of the future European airspace architecture. They expressed firm support for the development of the functional airspace blocks in the context of SESAR. According to Mr Nikolas Warinsko, SDM is ready to continue its work on FABs involvement as key factors in SESAR’s technological progress.

12th ANSP Board meeting / 23rd October 2018

The members of the DANUBE FAB ANSP Board met on the 23rd October 2018 in Sofia, Bulgaria for the twelfth time since the establishment of the FAB in 2012. The meeting was co-chaired by Mr. Georgi PEEV, Director General of BULATSA and Mr. CARNU Fanica, Deputy Director General of ROMATSA.
The participants were informed and exchanged views on the progress of the DANUBE FAB high priority projects in the operational domain like SEE FRA and seasonal FRA implementation, the status of DANUBE FAB procurements, FAB enlargement etc.
They also discussed a number of topics of common interest on which the FAB partners found a baseline for closer cooperation. These areas were identified within a Workshop organised by BULATSA in October 2018 with regard to the Synchronized Implementation of Regulation (EU) 2017/373, as well within a series of workshops held the umbrella of the Inter-FAB Cooperation Platform.
The members of the ANSP Board approved the necessary actions for the DANUBE FAB participation at the next World ATM Congress in Madrid 2019.

12th Governing Council meeting – 24th October 2018

On the 24th October, the DANUBE FAB Governing Council held its twelfth meeting in Belchin, Bulgaria.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the Ministries of Transport, Civil and Military Aviation Authorities, National Supervisory Authorities and ANSPs from both countries. Delegates from the Republic of Macedonia attended the meeting as Observers, reaffirming their interest to participate in the work of DANUBE FAB on topics of mutual interest.
The members of the Council took note of the current DANUBE FAB developments in the high priority projects regarding the technical and operational domains and were presented with the regular ANSP Board and NSA Board reports.
They also focused on the possible extension of the DANUBE FAB with neighbouring countries which has been an overarching goal since the establishment of the FAB between Romania and the Republic of Bulgaria. A formal process has been initiated to invite neighbouring countries to apply for Observer status in DANUBE FAB, following the defined application process as foreseen by the DANUBE FAB Observers Policy.
The members of the Council reiterated their commitment to an open dialogue with the European Commission on FAB matters especially in the light of the evolving regulatory SES framework.
The next round of DANUBE FAB Governing Bodies meetings is planned for spring 2019 in Romania.

DANUBE FAB partners organized a workshop on the synchronized implementation of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/373 of 1 March 2017 laying down common requirements for providers of air traffic management/air navigation services and other air traffic management network functions and their oversight, repealing Regulation (EC) No 482/2008, Implementing Regulations (EU) No 1034/2011, (EU) No 1035/2011 and (EU) 2016/1377 and amending Regulation (EU) No 677/2011. The workshop was hosted by BULATSA on 1-3 October 2018 in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Representatives of the Romanian and Bulgarian NSAs together with operational, technical, safety, quality, training, CNS, MET, AIS and strategy and planning managers from ROMATSA and BULATSA participated at the event.

DANUBE FAB partners discussed topics such as compliance management, description of Functional Systems, Development of Formal interfaces, Change management, ATSEP Training and competence, Certification and transition process, EASA Rulemaking activities and other relevant subjects.

The workshop provided a framework for exchange of views and sharing of best practices between Romania and Bulgaria to reach an aligned approach towards compliance with Regulation EU 2017/ 373.

BULATSA participated in the 5^th InterFAB Coordination Meeting together with representatives from Ministries of Transport, National Supervisory Agencies and Air Navigation Service Providers representing BALTIC FAB, BLUE MED FAB, DANUBE FAB, FAB CE, FABEC and South-West FAB met in Sibenik, Croatia, on September 21, to discuss current and upcoming challenges of European aviation.

A diverse range of topics at stake like the airspace architecture strategy, the preparation of RP3, the advantages and disadvantages of fragmentation and a system approach for European Air Traffic were discussed. In addition, participants agreed on several actions to address severe issues like the impact of climate change and volatility. FAB representatives shared best practices on social dialogue, agreed on further steps on the execution of the common InterFAB communication strategy and discussed studies on the EU-US Comparison as well as on the added value of FABs.

Following to the intense and constructive discussions, participants concluded that the InterFAB initiative – and by this the FABs as such – are demonstrating substantial benefits and agreed to further streamline the work to be conducted in the upcoming years.

The DANUBE FAB Governing Bodies held their eleventh meetings on 21st and 22nd of May 2018 in Bucharest, Romania.

21st of May 2018
The ANSP Board met on the 21st of May in Bucharest for the eleventh time since the creation of DANUBE FAB in December 2012. The meeting was co-chaired by Mr. CARNU Fanica, Director General of ROMATSA and by Mr. Georgi PEEV, Director General of BULATSA.
During the meeting, the members of the ANSP Board discussed on the ATM/ANS service provision related strategic FAB prospects for the next 5 years’ planning cycle, the status of DANUBE FAB procurements, operational activities (e.g. SEEN FRA, seasonal FRA in the Bulgarian airspace, SEEN FRA extension to 24H, LoAs, etc), so as on future technical projects, such as the assessment of the use of space-based ADS-B capabilities in DANUBE FAB.
During the meeting, the members of the Board were also updated on the recent activities of the DANUBE FAB Common Training Board and decided to take advantage of ROMATSA and BULATSA wide experience in the field of training, maintaining the competence and assessment of competence, thus, taking the development of the content and delivery of courses at regional level.
Regarding the FAB external environment, the two ANSPs tackled, among other important subjects, the FAB enlargement, a high priority objective settled for DANUBE FAB, inter-FAB coordination matters and nonetheless the outcome of the DANUBE FAB participation at the sixth World ATM Congress, Madrid 2018.
22nd of May 2018
The DANUBE FAB Governing Council held their eleventh meeting on the 22nd of May in Bucharest, Romania. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Ministries of Transport, Civil and Military Aviation Authorities, National Supervisory Authorities and ANSPs from both countries. Delegates from the Republic of Macedonia were welcomed to the meeting as Observers following the official mandate received at the sixth Governing Council meeting in 2015. The Macedonian delegation expressed their appreciation of the support from DANUBE FAB and their interest to participate in the work of DANUBE FAB on topics of mutual interest.
The members of the Council took note on the NSA Board and ANSP Board reports, the status of current DANUBE FAB procurements and plans for 2018 and the high priority projects under the Annual Plan, including the new template of the planning documents, which were designed to make the documents easier to follow and understand.

During the meeting, the Council’s members analyzed the prospects for the FAB developments, both in political and economic terms, as well as regarding the technical and operational particularities reported by NSA Board and by the ANSP Board. In this context, the Council took note of the status of the recent developments regarding the FAB enlargement. Also, the members of the Council were updated regarding the status of the inter-FAB cooperation and the recent development taken under this platform: the workshops on Volatility in Air Traffic and its impact on ATM Performance, Performance in ATM and Communication.
From an operational perspective, the Governing Council took note of the status of implementation of SEE/SEEN FRA, as well on the on the information provided regarding the seasonal FRA in the Bulgarian airspace.
Following the DANUBE FAB Governing Council meeting, Bulgaria and Romania extended an official invitation to Serbia to join DANUBE FAB with an observer status. Within this initiative and in the framework of an official delegation led by the President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev in Serbia on 21 and 22 June 2018, BULATSA Director General Georgi Peev held discussions with the Serbian ANS provider (SMATSA) on the same topic.
The next round of DANUBE FAB Governing Bodies meetings is planned for autumn 2018 in Bulgaria.

Mr. Veselin Stoyanov, Director European Programmes, Projects and Strategy at BULATSA, presented DANUBE FAB experience and know-how at the InterFAB Panel – Volatility in ATM: Cases, Challenges, Solutions at the FABEC OPS Theatre in the framework of the World ATM Congress 2018. Together with other functional airspace blocks representatives and the Performance Review Unit, participants discussed how different kinds of volatility (political conflicts, weather, low fare carrier behavior, ANS fees) impact the operational management of day-to-day business and how predictability should be improved in the given framework.

DANUBE FAB partner ANSPs BULATSA and ROMATSA hosted a debate on cyber security addressing the current and future challenges within the ATM cyber security domain.
Participants discussed the latest developments in the European legislation related to Cyber Security and necessity for implementation of new technologies to reflect the new requirements in the light of Directive (EU) 2016/1148 and Security in terms of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/373 of 1 March 2017 laying down common requirements.The implementation of a Cyber Security Operational Centre (SOC) was also presented along with its concept, platform (software, hardware), roles, responsibilities and future developments.
Participants highlighted the exchange of information for cyber incidents between local SOCs, within DANUBE FAB, with EATM-CERT, EU-CERT and other stakeholders. Exercises and training on cyber security at European level (Cyber 2018) were also discussed.

DANUBE FAB partnered SESAR in delivering transformation in air traffic management. The series of walking tours at the World ATM Congress in Madrid displayed solutions delivered and deployed across Europe for the benefit of the European Air Traffic Management.
BULATSA and ROMATSA experts showcased various SESAR related projects within the SESAR walking tour at the WATMC 2018. The projects represent deliverables in various ATM deployment areas such as Advancing ATM systems to support advanced concepts, Advanced air traffic services, Connect, communicate, share: enabling technologies in ATM, delivering tomorrow’s ATM platform and Building a user-centric network.
At WATMC 2018 DANUBE FAB presented the implementation of the following SESAR solutions related projects: 2015_174_AF5 “Advantages and applications of New pan-European network services (NewPens)”, the South Eastern European Night Free Route Airspace (SEEN FRA) project, the 2015_217_AF4 Traffic complexity assessment Tool (tCAT) BULATSA project, the 2014-EU-TM-0136-M Pilot platform for access services to OPMET (worldwide/ECAC) data (METAR, TAF, SIGMET) in WXXM format in ROMATSA and the 2016_062_AF5 initial SWIM Implementation – creating local security operation centre in BULATSA. All projects except SEEN FRA are funded by EC under various CEF Calls.

The thirteenth DANUBE FAB Social Consultation Forum (SCF) was held in Sinaia, Romania on 15 February 2018. The meeting between BULATSA and ROMATSA social partners and management representatives was focused on recent developments in the EU ATM, joint activities and related social aspects. These regular consultations provide a good mechanism for common understanding, collaboration and trust for the benefit of operational and technical progress in both ANSPs.
DANUBE FAB management facilitated the active participation of the social partners in the meeting, noting the importance of the social dialogue. The latest FAB developments and activities as well as updates on the outcomes of the DANUBE FAB governing bodies meetings were presented. The evolution of the Free Route Airspace project and the joint participation at the World ATM Congress and Exhibition in Madrid in March 2018 were also discussed
Parties analysed the status of planned activities, focusing primarily on the high-priority projects for 2018 such as the InterFAB cooperation, FAB enlargement and common procurements.

The CEOs of BULATSA, ROMATSA and SMATSA had a meeting in Belgrade, Serbia to discuss potential areas of cooperation in airspace, CNS (communication, navigation and surveillance), interoperability and cyber security.
DANUBE FAB and SMATSA management representatives reviewed the status of cooperation between the ANSPs and agreed to strengthen their efforts in the operational domain (such as coherent Free Route Airspace implementation), as well as in the technical field (GNSS, use of satellites in communication, navigation and surveillance, cybersecurity).
Longer term perspectives related to the future accession of Serbia to the EU were also in the focus of this high-level meeting. These were mostly related to the RP3 regulatory developments, future of FABs and development of airspace initiative along the common border of the three countries.
The parties expressed their interest in working together on joint regional initiatives and agreed on collaboration in the operational and technical areas so as to deliver common benefits.