FAB CE News

The 7th FAB CE CEO Committee took place in Vienna on September 13th. Among the main topics discussed were the FAB CE strategy development, the approval of the  FAB CE "Free Route" concept and roadmap, enhancing the static scenario towards a "Free Move"  scenario. The approval of a consolidated ANSP response to the observations raised in the context of the FAB CE consultation and the review of the improved project progress in 2012.

The final conclusions of this meeting represent a major step towards the successful implementation of FAB CE by December 2012. 

The RAT (Risk Assesment Tool) is a web based tool which supports the safety investigators to assess the risk of a particular incident and is one of three Safety KPIs  as defined by EC regulation (safety management effectiveness,  RAT tool and just culture measurement) . There are regular Eurocontrol workshops involving various ANSP representatives from Europe, including experts from FAB CE.

In order to achieve better harmonisation within FAB CE,  the Safety Sub-Committee arranged with Eurocontrol the specific workshop on “Risk Assessment Tool usage for FABCE ANSPs“, which took place in Prague in February. This was one of the first workshops for a FAB dedicated to this topic.

16 experts from FAB CE attended and after an introductory presentation by Eurocontrol, exchanged experiences with risk assessment regarding variuos types of safety occurrences. The overall purpose is to achieve an harmonised level of risk assessment.

The EC Consulatation and Stakeholder meeting was held in Brussels on June 8.

Over 40 stakeholder representatives, ranging from aisrpace users to staff representatives and other FABs, took the opportunity to get the latest information on the ongoing establishment of FAB CE and exchange views on a wide variety of issues. Topics included among others the organisational structure of FAB CE as well as the current status of major projects. The presentations by the FAB CE representatives were followed by questions and answers.  The EC stressed that the consultation meeting was not part of the formal assessment that would commence after December 4th. The consultation primarily served as a clarification of the submitted documents and as an information platform for interested stakeholders.

In accordance with EU Legislation regarding the consultation process all FABs have to provide a set of comprehensive documents by June 24. The submitted FAB CE documents as well as the presentations can be found here.

The Slovak Republic has become the third state to ratify the FAB CE Agreement (FABA). With the prior ratification by Austria and Hungary and the respective deposit of the ratification instruments with the Republic of Slovenia the FAB CE Agreement officially entered into force for these states with March 20, 2012. For the Slovak Republic the agreement will enter into force on May 28th.

The FAB CE ASM/ATFCM integration live-trial trial will examine coordination procedures and coordination tools in the FAB CE environment with Flexible Use of Airspace. The trial will be held from May 3rd to 31st and will include the airspace of six FAB CE States, namely:  Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia. A national expert from Bosnia-Herzegovina will take part in the preparation and participate as observer during the trial period. A Safety assessment prior to the Live trial was successfully completed.
 
Expected results:  

The trial will assess the interactions between the National Airspace Management Cells (AMCs), Flow Management Positions (FMPs) and the Network Manager including the workloads of the various parties, the activation and deactivation of restricted or segregated airspaces and the conditional route availability notification process. It will also measure, both subjectively and objectively, the benefit of the procedures. It will assess the available system support tools from Eurocontrol (NOP –Network operations portal and LARA – Local and Sub Regional Airspace Management Support System). 
 
Key benefits:  

• Improvement of performance (capacity, cost effectiveness, flight efficiency, environment)
• Enhancement of Civil - Military and Military - Military Cooperation
• Implementation of Flexible Use of Airspace Concept on FAB level

The 1st Social Dialgoue  Forum 2012 was held at Prague Jeneč at Czech ANS premises on 14 March 2012. More than 30 participants attended the meeting, co-chaired by Mr. Jan Klas, the current FAB CE CEOC Chairman, and by Mr. Janos Lakatos, Danube ATCU. 

At the beginning of the meeting a detailed overview regarding the current status of the FAB  CE projects was given by the FAB CE Program Manager. He informed about the imminent setting up of the Project Support Office (PSO) and concluded that Legal framework for compliance with SES shows no problem.


The "Procedure of Distribution of SD relevant information to SD partners" was discussed and noted that in the future some improvements concerning the flow of information should be made. The new FAB-CE website was presented, where current information and news on FAB CE developments will be made available to the public.

In addition,  the "Social Partners´ Position Paper on ATCO mobility" was presented and discussed. The CEOC Chairman confirmed that no Forced Mobility is envisaged in FAB CE. The SD Partners’ Paper on Mobility will be distributed to the CEOC Meeting and commented by the CEOC Chairman.

It was noted the need expressed by the FABCE Alliance Representative to develop a Roadmap along the points in the Letter sent to the current FAB CE CEOC Chairman on the issue of taking care of all social aspects in FAB CE developments.

The next SD Forum 2012 will take place on October 17th.