“European air traffic safety is excellent, and air traffic is still the safest means of transport,” said Joe Sultana, Eurocontrol’s Director Network Manager, at the beginning of the second day of the CEO Safety Conference which took place in Frankfurt on May 11, 2017. This year’s host of the conference was the German ANSP DFS.
Around 80 general directors and safety managers from around 40 ANSPs participated in the Frankfurt conference, where they discussed important air traffic safety issues in order to decrease safety threats.
The topic of the first day was the need for a broader implementation of satellite technologies in the area of aircraft communications, navigation, and surveillance, which will be tackled in the years to come. The directors visited the European Space Operations Center (European Space Agency) in Darmstadt where they had a chance to exchange information with the Agency’s management.
On the second day of the conference, a round-table discussion on the RP2 and RP3 performance plans and their impact on air traffic safety was hosted by Joe Sultana. It was attended by the directors of the ANSPs of Germany, France, and Italy – Klaus-Dieter Scheurle, Maurice Georges, Roberta Neri – which are the largest air navigation service providers, Croatia – represented by Dragan Bilać –, a Lufthansa’s Board Member Harry Hohmeister, and the EASA’s Director of the Strategy & Safety Management Directorate Luc Tytgat.
During a panel discussion, CCL’s Director General Dragan Bilać highlighted a need for EASA to place special emphasis on the so called leading safety indicators during the legislation auditing process and the preparation for RP3 in the context of performance management, supporting the EASA’s plan to reduce the volume of legislation, at the same time increasing its quality. The participants exchanged their opinions on the ways of successfully balancing between the four key performance areas, agreeing on one thing – safety must have right of way over the other three areas.
The CEO Safety Conference takes place every two years within the framework of the Eurocontrol’s ES² Programme (Experience Sharing to Enhance Safety). The previous conference was organized by Croatia Control (CCL) in June 2015.
