If they are to safely manage an increasing number of flights, countries must be more willing to share their flight data on air traffic flow management (ATFM) approaches, Fang Liu, secretary general of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), has told a global air traffic symposium.
“To manage future growth, we must become better at what we already do and in the finite airspace we already control,” Liu said Tuesday in a speech to ICAO’s ATFM Global Symposium, meeting in Singapore. “For some states, this will involve sovereignty concerns, as all partners involved in an ATFM framework must be willing to fully commit to and support a more open and collaborative international flight information environment.”
ATFM is designed to optimize capacities of the air traffic management system by more precisely coordinating takeoffs and landings and by routing flights around constrained airspaces.
“This advance and real-time coordination helps to avoid aircraft reaching their destinations and being placed into costly holding patterns, as well as permitting ATM professionals in general to be much more responsive when dealing with meteorological or other unexpected events,” Liu said.
Noting that air traffic flights, as well as the number of passengers carried, generally double every 15 years, Liu said that in many parts of the world, it will not be enough to add new airports to accommodate growth.
