International Day of the Air Traffic Controller

By Sumith Tennakoon
Senior Manager, Air Traffic
Control

The aviation industry and profession Air Traffic Control (ATC) is battered by the global pandemic COVID-19 all over the world. Air Traffic Controllers engaged in this profession are contemplating how to celebrate “International Day of the  Air Traffic Controller”  which falls on 20th October. Over the years the ATCs marked this day with many events such as awareness programmes and quiz contests for aviation-loving schoolchildren, seminars, workshops and many other programmes by experts in the industry. Today, the ATCs are compelled to be confined to the operational units to manage the remaining low numbers of air traffic and to protect themselves from the pandemic. They still could celebrate this annual event as the ATCs in Sri Lanka are provided with a Pilot and ATC friendly next generation surveillance system which has the capability of providing a global surveillance coverage.   Airport & Aviation Services SL Ltd, the sole air navigation service provider in Sri Lanka, took   initiatives to implement Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS B) the future of Air Traffic Surveillance System meeting the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) timelines. 

The ATC community is ready to face any challenge at any time, by the nature of their job in providing air traffic control service. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in early March 2020, Sri Lanka was challenged   with a heavy air traffic growth, around 6 % compared to 2019. This growth was challenging the safety and efficiency of the Air Traffic Service (ATS).  The plans were already in place to face this challenge with measures such as introducing new operational sectors in order to manage the sector capacity of an ATC, new procedures to manage this air traffic growth, recruitment of new ATCs and introduce new technology. 

Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast commonly known as ADS B is the latest surveillance technology approved by the Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for the purpose of aircraft tracking and for the provision of horizontal separation between aircraft. This system is very cost effective and environment friendly.  ICAO member states agreed to the resolution A38-18 to introduce four methodologies to reduce the Green House Gas (GHG) emissions by 2% within the next 10 years in order to sustain the industry. The four methods to reduce emissions are introduction of alternate fuels, new technologies for aircraft manufacturing to reduce fuel burn, seamless Air Traffic Management (ATM) infrastructure development among the states and introduction of market-based measures such as carbon trading. All the ICAO member states in Asia and Pacific region have met the 2020 ADS B implementation mandate thus providing a seamless ADS B service. The ADS B implementation in Sri Lanka and the neighbouring Maldives have filled a 50 nm surveillance gap between the two Flight Information Regions (FIR) enhancing   safety and efficiency. This surveillance gap filling has enabled the ATCs in both countries to apply reduced horizontal separation standards between aircraft flying in this region.

ADS B surveillance system has a higher range capability than the other surveillance systems such as radars. In Sri Lanka the ADS B range capability is 330 nm compared to 230 nm radar range. This extended surveillance range provides overlapping surveillance coverage between neighbouring states at the Flight Information Region boundary. This enables the ATC to monitor the aircraft well in advance prior to entering the area of control and plan and manage the traffic safely and efficiently. It also enables to identify and avoid if any coordination errors for any aircraft entering the FIR without prior coordination with the neighbouring states.

This new technology enables the ATCs to apply a minimum horizontal separation standard of 3 nm between aircraft due to the integrity of the technology and the very high update rate of the position of the aircraft presented to the ATC on the ATC displays, compared to other surveillance systems.  It also has many other advantages such as aircraft tracking globally for search and rescue purposes, and tracking of airport vehicles if fitted with an ADS B antenna in and around the airports, availability of detailed traffic information for pilots in the cockpit displays, etc. The next level of ADS B for the Asia Pacific region, the space based ADS B technology will provide surveillance coverage over large oceanic airspaces.  It is   already implemented in the North Atlantic airspace in Canada and is in the trial stage in the Asia and Pacific region.

Leading air navigation services providers and regulators are conducting extensive research to establish this cost-effective environmental friendly surveillance system for the future ANS.  The Next Gen project of USA, through NASA, has addressed the piracy issues of the ADS B technology through “Block Chain Management” technology. This technology will block the ADS B tracking of sensitive aircrafts such as VVIP or military by the general purposes users and will be available for air traffic users only.

The hope of the aviation industry is a quick recovery from the pandemic. The IATA and ICAO forecast for the industry to recover to reach pre-Covid traffic levels   only by 2023. The author wishes all the ATCs in the world “A Happy ATC Day”.