FAB CE News

The 15th FAB CE CEO Meeting was held in Ljubljana on January 23. Significant progress was made towards establishing the FAB CE Legal Entity. Other important work items were the review of social dialogue matters and its continuation in 2014.

The progress on the FABCE Strategy update development and the alignment of the implementation planning towards the FAB CE performance plan for the Reference Period Two (RP2) as well as the application of the common competence scheme were also discussed.

The new FAB CE Newsletter (December) offers insight into the ongoing activities of FAB CE. The newsletter is available for download now.

In this edition:

- Meet the Chairman
- Selected Project Reports with Highlights
- From Master Plan to Implementation
- Inter-FAB cooperation
- Looking ahead

FAB CE Newsletter December

November 2013 – The CEOs of all 7 FAB CE (Functional Airspace Block Central Europe) air navigation service providers signed the Interconnection Framework Agreement on a regional network for the transmission of information. This agreement crowns several years of active cooperation among network professionals on the development of their ANSPs’ cross-border network, in short X-bone.

The Interconnection Framework Agreement (IFA) was developed in close cooperation between the network and legal experts. In addition to standard contractual content, the agreement encompasses up-to-date architecture, procedures related to operations, maintenance and development, list of allowed applications, management body and its procedures and effective list of contacts.

X-bone is a fully redundant IPv6 backbone, interconnecting individual networks of national ANSPs. It serves for operational as well as for test and development purposes between the ANSPs in Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. Extension to FAB CE as well as other countries is foreseen in the near future. The operational platform (X-bone OPS) is used for exchange of operational messaging (OLDI) and surveillance (SSR) data between the end user applications. The test platform (X-bone TEST) is used for various tests related to new configurations, pre-operational validation, validation of new applications, etc.

This agreement is a fine example of the successful cooperation between all 7 ANSPs as part of FAB CE and is the result of developments originally initiated by LPS SR in close cooperation with Austro Control and HungaroControl as adjacent neighbours a few years ago.

FAB CE is the joint initiative of 7 States and ANSPs from Central Europe. The Participating States are: Austria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia. The respective participating ANSPs are: Austro Control, BHANSA, Croatia Control, ANS CR, HungaroControl, LPS SR and SloveniaControl.

The 14th FAB CE CEO Meeting was held in Brussels on July 14. Items on the agenda included joint reports from the FAB CE SC Chairman and the Program manager. Among the topics discussed were the on-going development of a FAB CE Legal Entity and the EU Pilot. As a guest at the meeting, the EU Commission’s Director for Air Transport Matthew Baldwin disccussed with the CEO Committee Members the current status of Single European Sky as well as FAB CE and its implementation.

The Air Navigation Services Providers (ANSPs) of ten countries comprising the region from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea on November 6, 2013 in Sofia signed a strategic cooperation agreement on establishing a regional cooperation platform. The purpose of the strategic alliance titled GATE ONE, covering the area of three functional airspace blocks (FAB CE, Danube FAB, Baltic FAB) is to promote the efficiency of European Air Traffic Management through an enhanced cooperation among the participating service providers.

The agreement was signed by ANSPs of Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. The Parties agreed on the accession of Bosnia-Herzegovina ANSP at their next meeting in January 2014.

The airspace between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea is one of the most important gateways of the European continent: this region handles air traffic in the directions of North and South, East and West, sustaining links between the central and Nordic countries of the European Union as well as with the continent of Asia and the region of the Middle East.

The actual developments of the European Air Traffic Management industry point towards the assumption that the air navigation service providers of the region, operating under similar conditions, can only be efficient in attaining their interests in case they create a closer cooperation in the coordination of strategic issues (and the operative issues being meaningful at the regional level). Furthermore, they need to strive towards representing a consolidated position concerning common technical and economic issues affecting the region and vital to the Union-wide picture of the Air Traffic Management.

The newly appointed Director Network Manager Joe Sultana from Eurocontrol took the opportunity to discuss current issues with the FAB CE CEOs at their committee meeting on September 17^th in Zagreb. Among the topics discussed were recent developments in FAB CE, the EU Pilot and SES 2+. Other items on the agenda of the CEOs included the ongoing development of the FAB CE Legal Entity (FCE) as well as a report from the program manager on FAB CE Seamless Operations.