I have recently read a very interesting report on the challenges that leading aviation experts identify for the future of ATM, especially in Europe. The conclusion of this study is that even though these experts have identified significant challenges for the future, they still anticipate long term growth for the industry. [since these experts mainly come from the aviation community one can say that at least the experts still believe in their sector, but one can also say that the report may be biased because it is too close to the experts' home. Anyways, I am also too close to be objective...]
Some of the challenging areas they have identified range from the need for more innovation, to defragmentation of airspace, to management of resources to marketing, security environment and ticket pricing. So as you can see it is very broad. Here are some of the broad lines in some of these areas.
Innovation: The challenge is that the rate of innovation in ATM is slower than that of the flight deck for example. Technology ages, regulation and certification cycles are too long…
Safety: Ensuring safety while increasing complexity of the system is another challenge. To this challenge one needs to add another one: of how to conciliate the safety paradigm with the market led economic regulation one [which many times are at perpendicular angles to each other] Yet another challenge in this area will be to maintain the perception of safety [of course this perception needs to be backed up by the real McCoy] in an ever decreasing risk tolerant society.
Environment: A hygienic factor. Society seems to perceive aviation as a major contributor to environmental issues. This may reduce travel demand in the future because of extra taxes and emissions quotas. Here my comment is that better selling of aviation should be done. Where as it is true that toxic emissions and noise are environment issues caused by aviation, it should not be compared to road transport for example. Whereas train travel is seen as an alternative cleaner way of transport to the car – mass transportation,[ noise and emissions] air travel does not. Yet trains pollute as well.
I would say that the emphasis of this challenge should be more on how to selling the industry to society rather than on the reality of the problem itself [I am thinking of the bonus malus schemes in some countries to incite people to buy cleaner cars- but these cleaner cars are still for individualistic use and pollute.]
Defragmentation: A challenge is to defragment airspace and service provision to achieve efficiencies and economies of scales. A barrier to this is country sovereignty but also a lack of clarity of who is in charge of regulation, specification, system construction, certification etc. on a broader scale.
Human in the system: How to bring the human in the system to meet future roles in an intensely automated system? A second issue is that in the transition between current systems and paradigms and the future concepts there is a severe lack of resources which in turn slow down change, innovation and improvement. In a way this is a paradox. We need more people now to define and implement a system which will be more and more automated then….
Scarcity management: The aviation industry is saturated. Resources [fuel, space, etc] are becoming scarce. The industry needs to learn how to efficiently manage scarcity.
Marketing: The industry tries to identify trends in air travel for the future but seems to lack the understanding of the influencing factors t these trends.
Security – The aviation industry needs to deal with this challenge both at the societal side of things but also in the technologies that ensure the running of the system. These systems may become targets of security threats and of sabotage acts which will have implications on safety and efficiency in the future.
Lastly in my list, ticket prices seem to be at their lowest, meaning that the future trend is upwards.
All these challenges will need to be considered both when running day to day business and while conceiving and implementing changes and improvements. The experts thinks there is still hope…
As I wrote before this is an interesting report. Worth a read and a thought.
Click here for the report
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