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Starting from 6th of December 2018 the Aircraft Operators are allowed to plan their flights freely across the airspace of 4 states – Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia – without the limitations given by the geographical borders. Since 00:01 a.m. local time Slovakia has opened the airspace for the Free route operations.
LPS SR, the Air Navigation Service Provider of Slovakia, has joined the SEEN FRA (South East Europe Night Free Route Airspace) initiative of 3 ANSPs, namely BULATSA, HUNGAROCONTROL and ROMATSA. SEEN FRA itself is a specific volume of the European airspace where the Aircraft Operators are allowed to file their flight plans without the obligation to follow prescribed ATS routes during the night times from the midnight until 0600 a.m. local time.
The new flight planning rules significantly optimize the flight trajectories not only for the sake of the usage of the shortest connections but also to allow the use of the most effective routings when the reaction to the impacts – like adverse weather avoidance – on the flights is inevitable.
According to the simulations the synergistic effect of all of the improvements has the potential to save daily average 3.200 NM of the total mileage which represents 15tons of fuel savings and at the end of the day 49 tons less of CO2 emissions.
The positive evolution of the changes in the Central and South-Eastern Europe airspace will continue during the next year. From April 2019 H24 FRA will be implemented within the Slovakian airspace and during summer 2019 the LPS SR will accordingly consider the extension of SEEN FRA availability for a longer part of the day. As of the 7th of November 2019, the 3 countries which started the SEEN FRA initiative (Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania) will extend the availability of cross-border FRA operations for the entire day by bringing into operation the SEE FRA project (South East Europe Free Route Airspace).
The activities related to SEEN FRA/SEE FRA and national FRA projects are in accordance with the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 716/2014 which directs the individual ANSPs to cooperate towards introducing the Free Route Airspace above FL300 (9.000m) throughout Europe by the end of 2021.
The main enabler and driver of the airspace changes at European level is EUROCONTROL, particularly the Network Manager. Thanks to the involvement and good will of all stakeholders, namely EUROCONTROL Member States and EUROCONTROL Agency, the Aircraft Operators will be able to fly on optimised profiles, using less fuel, hence reducing aviation´s environmental footprint.

At the invitation of State Enterprise for Air Traffic Organization in the Russian Federation a delegation, led by BULATSA Director General Georgi Peev, participated in a bilateral meeting on 5 December 2018 in Moscow.

During the visit were discussed operational and technical topics related to the safety in the provision of air navigation services. At the meeting were discussed the views of both organizations on the air traffic flows and the need to ensure capacity of the national and the delegated airspace over the Black Sea. The discussions were also held in the context of the increasing traffic from Russia to Varna and Burgas airports during the summer period, as well as the new airport in Istanbul, which is expected to start working effectively in 2019.

Daniela Vasileva, Head of Information Security at BULATSA, ranked among the three finalists in the category “Innovations” at this year’s IT Manager of the Year competition, organized by ICT Media and the Club of IT Managers in Bulgaria.
The nomination was received due to the successful implementation of the BULATSA Security Operations Center project.
The purpose of the competition is to distinguish the managers who have contributed to the efficient use of information technologies and to highlight their important role in company leadership. The IT Manager of the Year Awards are in three categories – Management, Innovations and Efficiency.
The Security Operations Center is a distributed architecture platform that allows effective protection of the overall IT infrastructure of BULATSA – in the central location in Sofia and the airport air traffic control centers in Varna, Burgas, Plovdiv and Gorna Oryahovitsa. The technical solution is based on a security strategy using intelligent cyber-threat intelligence methods and provides reliable protection against conventional and advanced complex cyber-threats.
The successful building of the Security Operations Center makes BULATSA the only air navigation services provider in the Balkans which has successfully implemented such a project. The project is financed by the Connecting Europe Facility Programme of the European Commission.

BULATSA was host of the international basketball tournament for air traffic controllers – CONTROLLER’S BASKETBALL CUP „TOUCH AND GO” 2018, which took place in Sofia.
The tournament is organized annually in different European countries. This year the team of Bulgarian air traffic controllers competed with 14 other teams. After victories in the group phase of the tournament against the teams of Slovenia, Italy and Greece and one more victory during the direct elimination against the Hungarian team, and only two losses from the Czech and Greek teams, the Bulgarian air traffic controllers ranked 6-th.

BULATSA supports the Clean Air Day initiative, which will take place on 16 November in Sofia and is being conducted for the first time in Bulgaria.
It is part of the Sofia Municipality’s campaign to implement various educational initiatives to provide citizens with information about their personal contribution to air quality in our capital city – including by reducing the use of private cars in favour of the public transport, shared car travel from and to the workplace, transition to ecological heating, separate collection of combustible waste from the home (large-sized, tyres, textile), landscaping.
BULATSA has an active policy to protect the environment and minimize the negative impacts on it, and tomorrow the employees will participate in the initiative by refraining from using personal and company motor vehicles in favour of the public transport or for shared travel to and from the workplace.
The enterprise has a certified ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management System and is committed to environmental impact management.
The enterprise will also hold a campaign gathering of plastic caps and/or plastic bottles and will organize their delivery for recycling. The funds from the recycling will be collected and invested in the purchase and planting of trees in coordination with Sofia Municipality or the District Administration.
BULATSA plans to purchase an electric car charging station in 2019 to provide incentives for the use of electric vehicles by employees of the enterprise.

Air Traffic Controllers from BULATSA participated in real-time simulations at the headquarters of the Italian Aerospace Research Centre (CIRA) in accordance with the GRADE project implementation plan.
GRADE is a pan-European project aimed at demonstrating the capability for General Aviation aircraft and Rotorcraft to benefit from the concepts developed in the SESAR programme to integrate into the airspace and airports where the SESAR concepts and technologies are implemented.
The simulations aimed at proving the applicability of SESAR solutions #51, #55 and #103 for the general aviation. The exercises were conducted as planned and their results provided important information for the preparation of the flight tests scheduled for March 2019.
More information on the Grade project can be found on www.gradeproject.eu and on https://www.bulatsa.com/en/activities/projects/international-projects-2/sesar-2020/grade-gnss-solutions-increased-ga-and-rotorcraft-airport-accessibility-demonstration/.

The fourteenth DANUBE FAB Social Consultation Forum (SCF) was held in Sofia, Bulgaria on 6th November 2018. These regular consultations between BULATSA and ROMATSA social partners and management representatives provide a positive framework for establishing closer cooperation and exchange of professional experience and best practices.
DANUBE FAB management facilitated the active participation of the social partners in the meeting, reiterating the importance of the social dialogue in ATM. Discussions on the latest FAB developments and activities, as well as updates on the outcomes of the DANUBE FAB governing bodies meetings, held in 2018, were made. The evolution of the Free Route Airspace project, DANUBE FAB expansion perspectives and the joint participation at the World ATM Congress and Exhibition in Madrid in March 2019 were also discussed.
Participants were further informed of the outcomes of the DANUBE FAB Regulation (EU) 2017/373 Synchronised Implementation workshop, InterFAB meetings and Promotion of Toolbox for successful social dialogue in ATM Workshop.
The next DANUBE FAB social consultation will be held in 2019 in Romania.

BULATSA was one of the host organizations of the 17^-th edition of the Manager for a Day Career Forum, which took place on 30 October in Sofia. Within the framework of the initiative two young people took on the role of “Air Traffic Controller Trainees” under the guidance of the head of BULATSA’s Training Center Dimitar Chunchukov. The two “Managers for a Day” had the opportunity to closely familiarize themselves with the specifics of the Air Traffic Controllers’ work, the different training stages and the work of the whole enterprise. They visited Sofia Airport Control Tower, Sofia Air Traffic Control Centre and the training simulators in BULATSA.
This year, within the initiative organized by Junior Achievement Bulgaria, additionally was also held a Careers of Tomorrow Forum with a focus on the digitization of professions. BULATSA participated in the forum with the presentation “Digital technologies and the future of the Air Traffic Controller profession”. To the audience were presented the future trends in the development of the profession with the increasing use of digital technologies. It was emphasized that despite this fact, the human factor remains the most important one for the safe flight control.