Safe interoperability of new aeronautical communications, navigation and air traffic surveillance systems — being implemented now in the European Union (EU) and the United States and, with varying extents and timing, elsewhere — has received heightened government-industry attention in the past nine months.
Several reports and conference presentations address concerns expressed about new aspects of air traffic management (ATM) by aircraft manufacturers, air navigation service providers (ANSPs), pilots, airlines, regulators and other stakeholders. Some relatively imminent changes will not be as seamless as anticipated, they say, leaving questions about how they will mitigate operational risks.
Harmonization, seen as a component of interoperability, was a recurrent theme in a number of panel presentations and questions during the RTCA 2015 Global Aviation Symposium on June 3–4 in Washington, in a joint December 2014 report by the EU and the United States,1 and in a Ju…
