FAB CE reappoints consultancies to run Programme Support Office
The Functional Airspace Block Central Europe (FAB CE) has reappointed aviation consultancy Helios and Integra Consult to run its Programme Support Office (PSO) for the next three years.
To meet the growing complexity of Europe’s air travel and transport industry, air traffic management (ATM) needs to become more flexible, harmonised and seamless. To support this objective, the European Commission launched the Single European Sky (SES) initiative, which aims at unification of European airspace through a more integral and technology-driven approach to air traffic management, ultimately making aviation safer, more efficient and cheaper. In line with the broader European objective, seven states and air navigation service providers (ANSPs) from Central Europe joined forces to establish the FAB CE platform* in 2011.
The Programme Support Office (PSO) plays a key role in FAB CE’s work, helping to align it to Single European Sky and SESAR requirements, coordinate actions and track progress across priority programmes spanning business planning, technical harmonisation, common procurement and operations. In the first two years of PSO’s support, the FAB CE programme was reviewed and updated in accordance with the latest requirements of the SESAR Deployment Programme (DP).
The work by the PSO helped FAB CE, among others, successfully complete the “Free Route Airspace from the Black Forest to the Black Sea” Study, funded by the European Commission’s Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA). The office also helped the platform achieve INEA funding for its multi-applicant proposals in the competitive 2016 CEF Transport call, aimed at closing further gaps in SESAR DP implementation. FAB CE also completed its first smart/common procurement to upgrade its cross-border telecommunications network (X-bone) hardware and is currently looking at optimisation of the surveillance infrastructure.
In its endeavours, the PSO was supported by two external firms: Helios, the aviation consultancy of Egis, a global engineering group with over 14,000 employees globally, and Integra Consult, a privately held Danish company that provides consultancy services to the aviation and defence industries. Helios provided a team of around ten experienced consultants, working alongside five experts from Integra.
Building on the strong performance, FAB CE has decided to keep the two consulting firms on board, reappointing them for the next three years to run its Programme Support Office. “This is fantastic news and goes to underline the effective support provided by my colleagues and partners over the last two years,” said Juraj Jirku, PSO project manager for Helios. Petri Hartikainen, Integra’s project manager added, “It is great to see that the work performed by the PSO team during the past two years has continuation.”
Looking ahead, Matej Eljon, FAB CE Programme Manager, said that the main challenge will be to exploit the cooperative structures already in place and fulfil the requirements for new services foreseen by the SESAR Deployment Programme. “We are looking forward to the ongoing support of Helios and Integra, and are confident of meeting the performance targets specified in the FAB CE Performance Plan.”
* The participating states of FAB CE are Austria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia. The participating ANSPs are: Austro Control, BHANSA, Croatia Control, ANS CR, HungaroControl, LPS SR and Slovenia Control.
