Aviation affairs

EUMETNET supports EUROCONTROL’s Network Manager with onsite meteorologists, aiding the Summer Cross Border Convection Advisory.

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This summer EUMETNET, along with 13 MET Service Providers, have continued to take part in the European Cross Border Convective Advisory procedure for EUROCONTROL’s Network Manager. This year EUMETNET is also deploying operational meteorologists from 6 of these MET ANSPs (Air Navigation Service Providers) to Network Managers Operations Centre, to support their network management activities. The intent is to understand the potential value and additional capability that onsite meteorologists can play in supporting the European Aviation Network.

The Advisories primary goal aims to increase EUROCONTROL’s Network Manager (NM) and participating ATC ANSP’s (Air Traffic Control Air Navigation Service Providers) awareness of potentially significant convection that could disrupt the European Aviation network within the next 12 to 36 hours, to support operational decision makers’ effective and efficient management of the network. However, this year, the cross-border weather procedure is also playing an important role in ensuring that the recovery from COVID-19 is as delay free as possible. 

Cumulonimbus (CB) clouds are the main meteorological phenomena that this forecast focuses on, primarily as CB clouds can be used as a proxy for possible ‘weather avoidance’. Weather avoidance is the unplanned movement or deviation from the original flight plan requested at short notice by pilots as a result of ‘weather’ ahead. The reason that pilots would want to avoid these cloud types is due to the hazardous conditions associated within them (e.g. severe turbulence, downdraughts, icing and lightning) and the resultant comfort and safety implication for crew and passengers. Multiple avoidance requests will lead to additional workload and complexity for air traffic controllers, who may then be unable to safely handle the ‘normal’ amount of traffic, and capacity of the airspace is affected, resulting in diversions and delays of flights. 

The operational meteorologists, who will be deployed in July and August, will continue to produce the Cross Border Advisory. However they will also liaise directly with the staff at NM to provide a holistic assessment of the weather conditions affecting Europe on a day to day basis and also to learn more about the tasks that NM undertake and where they may have opportunities for additional weather support within their operations.

The first meteorologist on site is Pauline Jaunet from Meteo France, she said “It is a pleasure to directly interact with NM operational staff and assist them with better tailored weather forecasts. To promote the use of weather information to better manage the airspace and reduce the risks of disruption is a great opportunity to better understand the impacts the disruptive weather has on the aviation network.”

Iacopo Prissinotti, Director Network Management, EUROCONTROL said “On behalf of the EUROCONTROL Network Manager team I am delighted to welcome MET experts to NM’s operational centre this summer. Mitigating the effects of bad weather on air traffic and ensuring efficient and more sustainable operations is a key priority for us as we strive to deliver the best service to operational stakeholders in Europe. This trial is the latest in a series of NM initiatives in recent years to take a network-minded approach to bad weather with operational stakeholders: with these activities we aim to provide maximum situational awareness for all users when significant adverse weather conditions are identified that could affect multiple sectors.” 

Through the relationship that is developing between EUROCONTROL and EUMETNET, the participating MET ANSPs can together help provide advisory forecasts that are consistent within each state but also are effectively communicated to other airspace users regarding the impacts of convective weather so that they can plan for the disruption that may be caused, resulting in fewer delays and happier passengers.

 1 AEMET (Spain), ARSO (Slovenia), AustroControl, Croatia Control (CCL), DWD (Germany), Italian Air Force, KNMI (Netherlands), Met Office (UK), Meteo France, Meteo Swiss, OMSZ (Hungary), SHMU (Slovakia) and Skeyes (Belgium)
2 AustroControl, Croatia Control (CCL), DWD (Germany), Met Office (UK), Meteo France and Skeyes (Belgium)

SESAR

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SESAR

The SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) programme is one of the most ambitious research and development projects launched by the European Union. The programme is the technological and operational dimension of the Single European Sky (SES) initiative to meet future capacity and air safety needs.

Given the complexity of the programme, a legal entity called the ‘SESAR Joint Undertaking’ (SJU) was founded by the European Union and Eurocontrol, to coordinate and concentrate all relevant research and development efforts in the Community.

The mission of the SJU is to develop a modernised air traffic management system for Europe. This future system will ensure the safety and fluidity of air transport over the next thirty years, will make flying more environmentally friendly and reduce the costs of air traffic management.

Following on from the conclusion of SESAR phase 1 (2016), successful solutions which have demonstrated significant performance or safety benefits and fulfil the requirement of the EU’s Pilot Common Project (CIR (EU) N° 716/2014)  are being taken to the deployment stage. The SESAR Deployment Manager  has been established to coordinate and efficiently synchronise the upgrading of Europe’s air traffic management infrastructure in line with the Deployment Programme. In parallel, the SJU are also organising the second phase of SESAR R&D activities, namely SESAR2020.


 

  • "developing a modernised air traffic management system for Europe"

Meteorology and EUMETNET in SESAR
 

The SESAR phase 1 programme included a dedicated Work Package which addressed the critical dependency between weather, the environment, and the operational solutions of the SESAR Programme.  Work Package 11.02 ran from 2012-2016 and aimed to better integrate new MET information services and information delivery functions, to enhance the performance of ATM.

As the MET Federating Project within the Programme, 11.2 ensured consistency and coordination of the MET architecture, systems and services, utilised by all SESAR projects and solutions. EUMETNET were responsible for the ‘Meteorological Information Exchange Solution 35’. The recently published Solution Catalogue  describes the role MET plays in the ATM system and the work EUMETNET has done within SESAR.

EUMETNET led this MET workpackage which harnessed skills and technology into a consortium involving industry partners and several of our members:

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Following the successful conclusion of SESAR1, the technologies the EUMETNET consortium designed, developed, demonstrated and validated, have now been awarded EU grants to deploy to the stage of operational readiness. These deployment projects are being coordinated by EUMETNET in partnership with the SESAR Deployment Manager (SDM).

The deployment projects include:

·       2015_067_AF5 – European Weather Radar Composite of Convection Information Service

·       2015_068_AF5 – European Harmonised Forecasts of Adverse Weather (Icing, Turbulence, Convection and Winter weather)

·       2015_069_AF5 – European MET Information Exchange (MET-GATE)

·       2016 – SWIM Governance

 

Organisation


The SESAR activities of EUMETNET EIG are primarily undertaken by our Members, and coordinated through the EUMETNET Aviation Support Activity to ensure a consistent and compatible approach.

EUMETNET Aviation Coordinator
Ms. Rosalind Lapsley
from Met Office (United Kingdom)

EUMETNET Aviation Expert
Ms. Anu Lång
from Finnish Meteorological Institute (Finland)

More Information

WG Avimet

SESAR Joint Undertaking (SJU) [http://www.sesarju.eu/]

SESAR Deployment Manager (SDM) [http://www.sesarju.eu/]

AVIMET

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WG AVIMET: The Working Group for Aviation

Objectives

Aviation, consisting of a wide spectrum of aeronautical stakeholders, is a high priority customer group for most EUMETNET Members. Via co-operation, EUMETNET Members strive to improve the value and efficiency of aeronautical meteorological services to ensure performance benefits for the aviation industry as well as to reduce the negative impact of adverse weather conditions on the daily operations.

AVIMET is a Working Group of EUMETNET that was created to address issues of common interest within the aeronautical meteorological (MET) domain, especially in relation to the ongoing development of the political, technical and regulatory landscape under a Single European Sky (SES). In addition to this, the WG AVIMET aims to facilitate the exchange of information between members on aviation meteorological issues whilst developing common position statements of EUMETNET on aviation-related issues.

  • "facilitating exchange of aeronautical meteorological information between Members"

Focus Areas

AVIMET has identified three main focus areas:

  • Improving the value and efficiency of aeronautical meteorological services to the aviation industry to ensure performance benefits through cooperation, innovation and investment for the future
  • Improving the perception of the MET service providers by the other aviation stakeholders
  • Responding in a cooperative, consistent and user-focused way to the demands of the implementation of the Single European Sky (SES) initiative

 

Membership & Organisation

Membership is open to all EUMETNET Members who may nominate one representative to the Working Group. In general, the representative should belong to an authorized and certified MET Service Provider which may be either the EUMETNET Member itself or another agency in that country. On 1st of January 2017 AVIMET has 33 members.

The Working Group tasks are coordinated by an elected WG Chairperson whose main roles are to:

  • Act as an external spokesman for WG AVIMET when required
  • Act as an internal rapporteur to other EUMETNET bodies as required
  • Provide advice to the EUMETNET Aviation Support on how aviation issues should be handled

The AVIMET Chair is assisted by 2 elected Vice-Chairs.