Introduction
On May 2nd 1952, for the first time in the history of commercial civil aviation, the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) flew the London-Johannesburg route with a jet aircraft, a De Havilland Comet 1. As the crow flies, heading 154°, this trip covers a distance of more than nine thousand kilometers, 4889 nautical miles, to be exact, and entails flying through the airspace of no fewer than seventeen countries.
Before 1952, several days were needed to cross the African Continent from the North to the South; from then on, i.e. since 1952, a few hours only are enough. However, means of air-to ground communication, navigation and airspace surveillance have remained rudimentary. The pilot has no precise knowledge of the position of his aircraft; he can only estimate it. The air traffic controller, too, does not know the exact locations of the aircrafts; rather he transfers, nearly “submissively”, the information received from the pilots onto a panel, at least when he succeeds in establishing a communication with the aircraft in flight.
In 1952, the privileged who can afford to travel by air are rare; they amount to only a few millions. In 2008, commercial aviation carried more than 2.3 billion passengers1 (for a total of 682 victims2 corresponding to 109 accidents3). More than 4.8 billion passengers transited through the airports of the world4, AIRBUS registered orders for 777 airplanes and delivered 4835, BOEING received orders for 636 aircraft and delivered 3756 ; by 2020 the number of passengers will probably have doubled to reach the mark of 4 billion passengers a year!
Yet, to revert to the example of the London-Johannesburg journey, communication, navigation and airspace surveillance techniques have certainly evolved during that period (of nearly sixty years), but have not radically changed. Pilots and air traffic controllers continue to rely on a ground-based infrastructure, which remains, to a very large extent, dependent on the structure of that ground, on the local topography and on the financial means at the disposal of the States flown over to maintain this infrastructure in working order. Thus, for too long a period, the huge technological progress achieved in the meantime in the field of satellite positioning has not accompanied the spectacular growth of air traffic.
1 Analyses of the European air transport market, Annual Report 2008, Summary.
2 Analyses of the European air transport market, Annual Report 2008, Summary. This figure is to be compared with the one mentioned by IATA for the year 2008 (502): see: IATA Press Release, 19 February 2009. The difference is probably due to the use of different criteria (such as MTOW) in selecting the accidents that qualify for the reports.
3 IATA Press Release, 19 February 2009.
4 ACI World Traffic Report 2008, 28 July 2009.
5 AIRBUS Info, January 2009.
6 BOEING 2008 Annual Orders Summary; BOEING Press Release, Chicago, Jan. 08, 2009.
In 1952, the Convention on International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention7) agreed upon in 1944 had been in force for five years. The objectives of the Convention are clear, though sometimes contradictory: the promotion of air transport « safety » (a word used no less than eighteen times in the Convention) and « regularity », through the harmonization, even through the unification of mainly technical rules, while preserving, almost at all costs, the contracting States’ complete and exclusive sovereignty over their airspace.
The current situation of airspace locking, more precisely of airspace congestion, which results from the continuous growth of air transport within a legal and technical framework that, in itself, has evolved relatively little, is not compatible with both the objectives of safety and regularity of the Chicago Convention.
The maintenance and, if feasible, even the raising of the safety, regularity and efficiency levels of air transportation in an environment which is in constant growth, and which should remain so for the next twenty years, constitutes, briefly summarized, the major challenge that will have to be taken up by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in the future.
Since now more than twenty years ago, the first studies conducted by ICAO revealed that the mere improvement of existing navigation and surveillance techniques would not be sufficient to cope with the projected growth of air transport. This implied the necessity of making a true technological leap, in order to make use of other techniques that would no longer be dependent on the working order of the ground-based infrastructure, would be preciser and more reliable, and, last but not least, would be available to all airspace users without distinction.
The pilot would no longer deduce the position of his aircraft from the ground, but directly from satellites (the Global Navigation Satellite System – GNSS). The air traffic controller would no longer only know the location of the airplane through the use of radar, but on the basis of positioning data automatically transmitted by the aircraft, whatever its position and the position of the controller (Automatic Dependent Surveillance System – ADS).
In a first part (Part I), the intrinsic limitations of traditional navigation aids will be briefly tackled.
In a second part (Part II), the advantages of satellite air navigation will be shortly underlined.
A third part (Part III) will concentrate on some of the institutional and legal difficulties raised by the GNSS used as a primary means of navigation in civil aviation.
Finally, in a fourth part (Part IV), the state and progress of ICAO legal work in that field will be summarized, while also insisting on what is currently under way in Europe with the advent of Galileo.
7 Hereinafter abbreviated: the Convention or CHC.
Part I Traditional Air Navigation Aids (NAVAIDS)
The Chicago Convention itself doesn’t provide for, but merely recognizes, the « complete and exclusive sovereignty » of contracting States over their airspace (art. 1 CHC); this sovereignty expresses itself at all levels and in all possible forms, from the designation of territorial entry and exit points to the itinerary to be followed, through the designation of aerodromes to be used and of restricted or even prohibited zones to be avoided.
But the Chicago Convention makes it also mandatory for contracting States to provide for air navigation facilities over their territory, in accordance with the standards adopted by ICAO (art. 28 CHC). This obligation can be seen as a limitation of the contracting States’ sovereignty and, at the same time, as perhaps the very final expression of that sovereignty: these States, indeed, will ultimately have to be solely responsible for the proper running of their airspace.
As to what concerns more specifically the traditional navigation aids (navaids), on which air navigation has been relying since the Second World War, that is for more than 60 years, what can be said can be summarized in a few words : their operational capacity is limited, due to their location which must necessarily be on the fixed ground (perhaps possibly on ships) and due to their range, which is restricted to a few tens or hundreds of nautical miles. As regards their installation and maintenance costs, those remain very high, in particular if they have to be assumed by a single State.
Now, if we add up all these factors, the result is as follows: a world-wide airspace extremely fragmented horizontally, air routes that radically differ from one State to the other and that are largely dependent on the working order of the ground infrastructure and on the scope of the areas reserved for military purposes; a level of service, in particular with regard to the Air Traffic Control (ATC) service, which also differs fundamentally from one continent to the other (sometimes even from one State to the other or within the same State), most often depending on the financial means of the States concerned.
At the same time, this situation produces the harmful effect of channelling air traffic onto a few major axes only (the overall available airspace is consequently under-employed), resulting in a higher risk of collision and in depriving certain areas of the world (because of their topography or their development level, or both) of the advantages of air transport, in the broadest sense of the term.
To make matters worse, the estimated position of the aircraft, as opposed to its true position and the existence of huge areas not covered by radar, impose the allocation of very large (lateral) separation minima between the airplanes (of several tens of nautical miles, 60, or even 90 over the oceans), which contributes all the more to the saturation of the airways.
In terms of results: the indirect course of airways has major repercussions on the duration of the flights, systematically too long, hence on the fuel consumption and on the take-off weight of the aircraft (which has to be fed with more fuel than is necessary for a direct route) and, eventually, on the overall operational costs of the airlines (in July 2008, jet fuel was trading above US$ 170.— per barrel, with fuel reaching 40% of the operational costs8), without consideration of the environmental impact.
Finally, from the pilot’s perspective, the fact that during one and the same flight several sovereign airspaces have to be crossed, whose vertical division in terms of airspace classes and whose levels of service may strongly differ, and the mandatory resort to multiple, different and successive air navigation service-providers, add to the many difficulties that characterize air navigation today.
Therefore, the vast reforms undertaken by ICAO, known under the terms of Communication- Navigation-Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) concept, tackle a double problem : on the one hand, a technological problem, with the aim of overcoming the intrinsic limitations of the traditional navaids ; on the other hand, an operational problem, with the objective of re-organising the airspace according to the major air traffic flows and not to the States’ political borders : reference is made here to the creation of Functional Airspace Blocks (FABs), as will be the case in Europe in the years to come.
The use of new technologies and the restructuring of the airspace are linked in a way which is indissociable: the GNSS and the closely associated airspace surveillance technologies (ADS) form the technological tools needed for restructuring the airspace; the restructuring itself allows these new technologies to deploy their effects to the full.
8 IATA Corporate Communications N° 37, 08 July 2008.
Part II Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)
As far as navigation is concerned, the use of navigation satellites, that is, signals propagated from the sky (as opposed to signals sent from the ground), allows for the overcoming of most of the technical (and also financial) limitations that characterize the traditional navaids.
In fact, there is practically no longer any need for a ground infrastructure along rigid airways or in the vicinity of aerodromes ; finished, the difficulties ensuing from the structure of the ground (water, sand, ice) or from the topography of the area (mountains or plains); terminated as well, or at least moderated, the differences that exist between the continents and between the States in terms of ground installations : La Paz airport (ICAO Code SLLP), located at more than 13’000 feet, imprisoned by mountains, or Khartoum airport (ICAO Code HSSS), surrounded by the desert, will become accessible, no matter what the meteorological conditions may be (with the possibility of flexible approaches into the bargain), as are today Geneva-Cointrin (ICAO Code LSGG) or Brussels-Zaventem (ICAO Code EBBR) when visibility is down to nearly zero.
As far as airspace surveillance is concerned, the automatic transmission to the air traffic controller and to other aircraft in the vicinity, of the position and speed data of the aircraft equipped with a GNSS-receiver results in the fact that the surveillance and the management of the airspace are no longer dependent on the range of radar cover, non-existent over the oceans or in desert areas.
We are therefore moving towards a radically different diagram from the one that still mainly prevails today : where navigation is dependent on the ground, it will depend on the sky; where several tens of ground radio-beacons are necessary to operate one sole and the same flight, a few satellites will suffice ; finally, where several on-board instruments are necessary to ensure all flight phases (from take-off to landing, through cruise and approach), one single instrument – the GNSS receiver – will be enough.
Part III Institutional and Legal Aspects
However, appearances can be misleading, as, if for nearly thirty years technological breakthroughs in the field of satellite positioning have been spectacular, this has unfortunately not been the case with the institutional and legal sides of the question.
Frankly speaking, one single State only, the United States, more particularly its Department of Defense (DoD), with the Ground Positioning System (GPS), has today the capacity to provide the satellite signals on which, according to what is planned, worldwide air navigation should rely in the future. The case of the Russian Federation (with its Global Orbiting Navigation Satellite System – GLONASS) and the project of the European Community (with the future Galileo system) are for the time being not discussed here.
This means that an acute problem of dependence is raised, dependence on the part of the States using the signals on the unique provider of such signals (or, in any case, on a minority of providers). One should also add that, with specific regard to the principles anchored in the Chicago Convention, this problem is posed all the more acutely since this dependence contrasts sharply with the complete and exclusive sovereignty acknowledged to any contracting State over its airspace, together with its obligation – and the responsibility (and liability) concomitant with it – to provide proper air navigation facilities over its territory.
The reluctance shown by the signal-user States, at least for those States that can afford to ask themselves the question, is all the more important since the American GPS and the Russian GLONASS are operated, though with some mitigation, by the Armed Forces of the above named countries, and are « only » put (freely) at the civil users’ disposal ; this reluctance is all the sharper because the Chicago Convention recognizes the complete freedom of manoeuvre to contracting States in a case of war or national crisis (art. 89 CHC). Still, according to the logic of the Convention, user States are answerable for the proper equipment and functioning of their airspace (art. 28 CHC) in accordance with ICAO standards, even though they would agree to authorize the use of a system – the GNSS – over which they strictly have no command at all.
Now, from a legal point of view, the question is posed of the civil liability of provider States (or, perhaps in the future, of entities providing such signals) and of user States of such signals, which must authorize or not their use and if so, define on what grounds (as complementary, primary or sole means of navigation) and for which phase of flight (departure, cruise, approach, landing) these signals can be used. For it is of prime importance to understand that the use of the GNSS in international air navigation tends to make these States (or entities) key actors of air transport. From the moment when providers offer a global system and from the moment when the users make the functioning of the airspace for which they remain responsible rely on one (or maybe several) such system(s), they become key actors, in the same way as the air carriers or the aircraft operators, whose liability towards passengers and third parties on the ground is unified at the international level.
In that case, how exactly to solve the institutional and legal questions, knowing that the technology constantly evolves, knowing that the air carriers already overwhelmingly resort to the GNSS (very often without the State flown over even knowing it) and knowing that at the highest level in the industry, States are encouraged to authorize the use of this technology in their airspace ?
In terms of results, the legal studies of ICAO appear relatively meagre, but perhaps less, eventually, than what one may think at first sight ; for, even if the Organization’s studies have not, so far, led to the adoption of a binding legal framework dealing with the GNSS, they have nevertheless permitted the identification of nearly all the questions, sometimes totally new, raised by the implementation of that technology.
From the institutional point of view (i.e., as regards the relation between the States), the problem in fact lies in the creation of a legal binding link between providers (necessarily a minority) and users (necessarily, the huge majority of States), in order to ensure the continuity (and, if feasible, the quality) of the system ; this need, however, appears less evident when the provider is a purely civil one, at first sight more stable than a military provider (reference is made here in particular to the future operator[s] of the Galileo system, owned by the European Community).
Seen from the legal point of view (i.e., as far as questions of civil liability are concerned), things are also relatively clear: the legal means at the injured parties’ disposal (be they passengers, carriers, operators, subrogate insurers or third parties on the ground) are currently not sufficient, taking into account the current and future widespread use of this new technology. In particular, the bringing into play of the liability of the GNSS user States (i.e., that is, States having authorized the use of the GNSS) requires the adoption of specific rules dealing, besides the problem of the schematized identification of the defendant (channelling), with the questions of competence, the applicable law, the lifting of State judicial immunity and the rights of (internal) recourse.
In a system where the technology becomes global (covering the entire earth, it is the same for all users alike), but where the States, individually, remain the guarantors of the proper functioning of their airspace, whatever the operational arrangements made (my reasoning here is by analogy with what happens in the case of delegation of air navigation services), the question of the provision of internal means of recourse against the satellite signals provider(s) is fundamental for States bound to remain users (and not providers) of the system.
Towards developed States that have invested heavily in the field of air navigation and dispose of a performing, well-functioning infrastructure (like many European countries), one can voice the opinion that the absence of precise rules of law on the question of liability constitutes a brake to the global implementation of the GNSS.
Towards less favoured regions of the world, preoccupations are of a different kind: they rather concern the protection of the injured parties in the case of accident. For, precisely, one is allowed to think that the States that already today do not hesitate to authorize the use of the GNSS without formulating any reserves at all (reference is made in particular to States that, in 2009, are still deprived of proper air navigation facilities), may be the ones whose internal judicial system is susceptible of offering the injured parties an inadequate, insufficient protection in the case of accident.
When talking about air accidents, one should maybe not lose sight of the amounts that are at stake (these can reach several hundreds of millions of dollars, even easily exceed one billion of dollars in the case of heavy carriers like the Airbus A-380) ; equally, one should bear in mind that, in 2009, the rules that govern the liability of the carriers, and its implementation, are still not limited to those of the Montreal Convention of 19999: in a fair number of cases, indeed, it is still mandatory to the injured party (as an hypothesis, the main wage-earner in the family) or unfortunately, in the worst case, to their family, and not to the carrier or to the subrogate insurer, to undertake the necessary steps in order to claim, if possible, full compensation.
9 Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, signed at Montreal on 28 May 1999, entered into force on 4 November 2003.
Part IV International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)
Before concluding, I would like to revert to the International Civil Aviation Organization, simply to make a few observations:
In terms of results (today, in September 2009), one can say that the GNSS is, above all, the object of rules that are mainly of a technical nature, contained in Annex 10 of the Chicago Convention, Volume 110, dealing with air navigation radio aids. These legally binding standards, subject to the mechanism of article 38 of the Convention, are imposed on all States, without a distinction being made as to whether these States are GNSS providers or, simply, GNSS users. It follows then that the specifications concerning the US GPS are as imperative for the United States as they are for Switzerland, for example. It is for the user State to examine how and under which form it will continuously monitor respect of the relevant criteria of Annex 10. It is worth mentioning that Annex 10 has lately been revised (end of 2008) in order to take into account the improvements of the performances of the Russian-built and military-operated GLONASS.
At the institutional and legal levels, the examination of the US and Russian Letters11, by means of which these States have offered (for the last time in September 2007 as far as the United States are concerned) to put their systems of satellite navigation (GPS and GLONASS) freely at the disposal of the international civil aviation community (represented by ICAO) constitute political commitments, accompanied by so many (written) reserves that it appears difficult, reasonably, to draw legal warranties out of them in terms of continuity (and, to a lesser extent, in terms of quality) of the system.
The Charter on the Rights and Obligations of States concerning the GNSS Services (the Charter) – adopted under the form of an ICAO Resolution at the General Assembly in 199812 – constitutes a general framework, contains clear principles (ICAO contracting States guarantee the continuity of the signals and their conformity with the Organization’s standards) and make no distinctions between the provider(s) and the users (underlining once more the obligations that are incumbent upon the latter), but this Resolution is deprived of any binding legal value. In particular, it seems out of the question, at least at this stage, to consider that it might be revealing the existence of a custom…
The « rest » consists of Recommendations13 from the Legal and Technical Expert Panel (LTEP) of 1998, very useful for the identification of the problems (problems, however, that they do not solve), of the Report14 from the Secretariat GNSS Study Group (SSG) of 2004 and of three projects that were annexed to this Report, in the form of Elements to be included in a future Project of an International Convention15 (to which the United States were opposed, at least at the time, perhaps in consideration of the accent that has been put on the liability of the provider rather than on that of the users), in the form of a Framework-Agreement16 between States (where a third independent entity, to be set up or to be mandated, would be entrusted with the creation of legal links between the provider[s]and the users, on the basis of a binding model-contract) and, finally, in the form of a Bilateral Model-Contract17 to be adopted from case to case by the provider(s) and each user individually.
Up till today, none of these projects mentioned has been, to our knowledge, formally and definitively adopted.
In spring 2008, EUROCONTROL, acting in the name of the (then) 42 Member States of the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC), submitted to the ICAO Legal Committee a slightly revised project of a Framework-Agreement between States (LC/33-WP/4-8)18. Whereas the examination of this project appeared on the agenda of the 33rd session of this Committee (from April 21st to May 2nd 2008)19, it does not appear any more on the provisional agenda20 of the Committee’s 34th session, that took place from the 9th to the 17th of September 2009. It will certainly be up to the ICAO General Assembly of 2010 to decide whether or not to maintain, in the General Work Programme of the Legal Committee, the examination of the GNSS institutional and legal aspects and, more particularly, what continuation should (or should not) be given to the revised project emanating from the ECAC Member States.
10 International Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs): Annex 10 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation : Aeronautical Telecommunications, Volume I : Radio Navigation Aids, Sixth Edition, July 2006 (incl. Amendment N° 83 adopted 10 March 2008, effective 20 July 2008 and applicable 20 November 2008).
11 US Department of Transportation (DoT), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Letter to Mr. Roberto Kobeh, President of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Washington, 10 September 2007 ; Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, Letter to Dr. Assad Kotaite, President of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization, Moscow, 4 June 1996.
12 General Assembly Resolution A32-19 : Charter on the Rights and Obligations of States Relating to GNSS Services.
13 Recommendations 1 to 8 by the Panel of Experts on the Establishment of a Legal Framework with regard to GNSS (LTEP), in : A35-WP/75, LE/5, 28/07/04, Appendix, Attachment E.
14 Final Report on the Work of the Secretariat Study Group (SSG) on the Legal Aspects of CNS/ATM Systems, in : A35-WP/75, LE/5, 28/07/04, Appendix.
15 Proposals by Certain Members of the Group Relating to Main Elements for Inclusion in a Draft Convention, in : A35-WP/75, LE/5, 28/07/04, Appendix, Attachment H.
16 Framework Agreement between the Governments of […]Concerning the Implementation, Provision, Operation and Use of a Global Navigation Satellite System for Air Navigation Purposes, in : A35- WP/75, LE/5, 28/07/04, Appendix, Attachment G.
17 Draft Contractual Framework Relating to the Provision of GNSS Services, in : A35-WP/75, LE/5, 28/07/04, Appendix, Attachment F.
18 LC/33-WP/4-8, 17/4/08 : A Practical Way Forward : Model Framework Agreement for the Implementation, Provision, Operation and Use of a Global Navigation Satellite System for Air Navigation Purposes (Presented by the [then]42 Contracting States, Members of the European Civil Aviation Conference [CEAC]; Paper elaborated and coordinated by EUROCONTROL).
19 Legal Committee – 33rd session (Montreal, 21 April – 2 May 2008) : Provisional Agenda (LC/33-WP/1), Item 4 : Consideration of other items on the General Work Programme of the Legal Committee. See also :Legal Committee – 33rd session (Montreal, 21 April – 2 May 2008) : Agenda Item 8 : (Draft) Report on work done at the Session (LC/33-WP/8-2), 4.2 (tackling the CNS/ATM systems issue): « […]The Committee noted LC/33-WP/4-2, presented by the Secretary, and LC/33-WP/4-8, presented by EUROCONTROL. […]». [We underline.]
20 Legal Committee – 34th session (Montreal, 9 to 17 September 2009): Provisional Agenda (LC/34-WP/1). Note that no Final Agenda nor Final Report were available on the ICAO website (www.icao.int) at the end of September 2009.
Final Remarks
One cannot rule out that the GNSS institutional and legal issues will have to wait until Galileo is put into service in 2013 (or maybe in 2015, but anyway it is a question of « tomorrow ») to find something more than the beginning of an answer; all things considered, the situation is not very satisfactory, if one thinks of the remarkable technological developments that have been accomplished over a period of twenty-five years.
The advent of the European satellite positioning system, whose foundation consists of European Community Regulations21 (adopted by the Council and the Parliament) and which is intended to be used for civil purposes only (apart from police services), is not totally alien to the decision of ICAO, considering the deadlock the discussions have reached at the international level, to favour the adoption of a regional Framework-Agreement between States that could, in due course, serve as a worldwide model.
However, one can wonder if the questions that are raised on the international level match up with the ones that the European Community will have to solve imperatively, at the latest when Galileo is put into service. In our opinion, there is reason for doubt, considering that with Galileo the main accent could in priority be put on the questions of liability (of the provider[s] benefiting possibly from a concession delivered by the European Community) and less on the questions relating to the continuity of the system (where, on the contrary, the need for guarantees is important on the international level with a military US GPS and a military Russian GLONASS). And should the questions essentially focus on problems of liability, one cannot exclude that the simplest and most efficient way to regulate them is for the European Community to proceed by way of adoption of a Regulation (according to informal and unfortunately not verifiable sources, that seemed still to be the project at the end of the year 2009). In that case then, it could be the content of the Regulation, more than its form, that might be taken up again at the international level, subject of course to adaptation.
But above all, the advent of the Galileo system, in particular if it is backed by a clear legal framework, could incite the United States to come back to the negotiations table and, in a way, to « capitulate » with regard to the institutional issues (guarantees of continuity and quality) and to the legal issues (liability), with the risk, for that State, of seeing the European system eventually impose itself as the worldwide reference system. There again, from informal and unfortunately not verifiable sources, it seems that discussions on this matter could be (or could have been) taking place within UNIDROIT (at least this seemed to be the case at the beginning of the year 2009).
But precisely, these everlasting discussions should not make us forget that time is flying, that the increased use of the GNSS (mainly in its GPS component) is a fact that must be taken into account, be it welcome or not, and that the protection of the potentially injured parties, in case of accident, requires a rapid answer from the GNSS main users, at all levels; thus our proposition that the user States (that take advantage directly of this system) agree (between themselves) to adopt in the meantime a provisional solution, even an imperfect one, until the issue is definitely solved.
It would not be a surprise if, in the years to come, the question of the liability of the provider(s) and users of satellite signals had to be raised in the case of a specific aircraft accident involving in one way or another the aspects closely concomitant to navigation.
By the way, it should be stressed that the codification of States’ liability in the field of air transport is nothing extraordinary. At the time of the adoption of the Warsaw Convention in 192922, it should be remembered that the contracting States did nothing else than to codify, more precisely, to limit, their own potential liability. Indeed, except maybe for the United States, the air carriers of that time were fully integrated into the State’s structure (thus their denomination of flag carriers) ; admittedly even if now it is to a lesser extent, it is still largely the case today (and the re-nationalization, during the year 2008, of Aerolinas Argentinas shows that the tendency towards more privatization can invert).
Finally, here are some recent news items on the topic:
- At the end of September 2009, Airservices Australia reported that it would introduce the world’s first certified Ground Based Augmentation System (GBAS) into service at Australian Airports from late 2009 : « GBAS is the 21st century alternative to the 1930’s-era Instrument Landing Systems and offers major improvements in airport safety, efficiency and capacity. »23.
- Mid-September 2009, the FAA announced the approval of Honeywell’s Precision Landing System, clearing the way for increased safety and efficiency at airports by providing precise navigation service based on the GPS : « GBAS augments the GPS to provide precision approach guidance to all qualifying runways at an airport. It monitors the GPS signals to detect errors and augment accuracy by transmitting correction messages to aircraft via local radio broadcast. GBAS will initially supplement the legacy Instrument Landing System currently used at airports. »24.
- Mid-September 2009, it was also reported that the United States Air Force (USAF) had successfully achieved the launching of a series of eight entirely modernized GPS satellites (IIR-M)25.
- In a press release dating back to mid-August 2009, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organization (CANSO) revealed that a series of tests on the use of satellite navigation, achieved notably by the Nordic air carrier SAS, gave the opportunity of optimized approaches, permitting a substantial reduction of CO2 emissions 26.
- At the end of July 2009, the United States, through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), declared that 1'670 WAAS/LPV approaches (i.e., approaches using navigation satellites) were from now on operational on their territory (comparable to ILS cat. I approaches) ; they could estimate the number of such approaches at 6'000 at the horizon of 201827.
- Also at the end of July 2009, NavCom Technology Inc. announced the release of a GNSS multi-functional receiver, able, among others, to capture the signals sent either by the GPS or the GLONASS or even Galileo28.
- In the course of the month of July 2009, one learned that the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) had awarded a new contract to the company Raytheon, at the occasion of the modernization of the air navigation systems in India ; Raytheon will notably be given the responsibility of building the terrestrial stations of the Indian augmentation system of the US GPS, the GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation (GAGAN)29.
- In the course of the month of June 2009, one learned that a contract between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Arianspace had been concluded in order to provide for the launch of the first four operational satellites of Galileo; the completion of the European satellite navigation system is scheduled for 201330.
- In the course of the summer 2009, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) revealed that, for the first time, a Boeing B-737-200 from the air carrier Northern Air Cargo had been certified for the use of the US Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), thus allowing the carrier in question to reach with maximum safety remote regions, whose access had been very difficult in the past31.
- In the course of the year 2009, the European Commission published a tender concerning the definition of the main characteristics of the future operator(s) of Galileo.
- Also in 2009, but this time at the institutional and legal levels, the work programme of UNIDROIT still did not mention the existence of a possible project of an international convention dealing with institutional and legal aspects of the GNSS.
- In 2009, still from the institutional and legal points of view, two successive international conferences (January and September 2009) entirely dedicated to Galileo revealed the existence of a pre-project (unfortunately not yet accessible to the public) of a European Regulation tackling the institutional and legal aspects of the future satellite navigation system.
21 Among others: Regulation (EC) N° 683/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 on the further implementation of the European satellite navigation programmes (EGNOS and Galileo); Council Regulation (EC) N° 1321/2004 of 12 July 2004 on the establishment of structures for the management of the European satellite radio-navigation programmes (as amended by Council Regulation [EC] N° 1942/2006 of 12 December 2006); Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) N° 1321/2004 on the establishment of structures for the management of the European satellite radio-navigation programmes.
22 Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules Relating to International Carriage by Air, signed at Warsaw on 12 October 1929, entered into force on 13 February 1933.
23 CANSO ATM News, 28 September 2009.
24 FAA Press Release Update, September 21, 2009.
25 InsideGNSS, August 17, 2009.
26 CANSO News Europe, 11 August 2009.
27 FAA GPS/WAAS Approaches Update, August 2009 ; FAA SatNav News, Volume 36, July 2009.
28 InsideGNSS, July 31, 2009.
29 InsideGNSS, July 20, 2009.
30 ESA News, 16 June 2009.
31 FAA SatNav News, Volume 36, July 2009.
- At the beginning of the month of December 2008, one learned that Air New Zealand operated for the first time the route between Sydney and Queenstown using an Airbus A-320 equipped for and certified with Required Navigation Performance (RNP).
- A month before, we were told that Alaska Airlines operated as a pioneer in the use of Required Navigation Performance (RNP) in Alaska, but also in the rest of the United States (with the successful result of benefiting from shorter routes and from a reduced consumption of kerosene).
- In a press release dating back to November 18th 2008, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimated that the creation of the Single European Sky (SES) (and consequently of nine Functional Airspace Blocks [FABs]) would increase the capacity of this airspace by 70%, would reduce the average delay to one minute (compared with several tens of minutes now), would decrease the users’ costs by 50% and reduce the environmental impact of every flight by 10% by 202032.
- In a press release dating back from October 21st 2008, EUROCONTROL announced that Air France, with two other aircraft operators, had become the first air carrier in the world to obtain the European Aviation Safety Agency’s (EASA) certification for the use of the Automatic Dependant Surveillance System – Broadcast (ADS-B) in airspaces not covered by radar33.
- Finally, earlier in the year 2008, the spectacular trials achieved on the airport of San Sebastian (ICAO Code LESO), and repeated in September 2008 on the airport of Bologna (ICAO Code LIPE), where precision approaches equivalent to ILS cat. I precision approaches have been made using the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS) (European augmentation system for the US GPS), without the help of any ground infrastructure and reaching a precision situated below one meter (!), show how extensively the situation is changing in concrete terms34.
Dr. Julien Subilia
LL.M. Att.-at-law
Switzerland, 2009/09
32 IATA Corporate Communications N° 54, 18 November 2008.
33 EUROCONTROL Press Release, 21 October 2008.
34 EASA News, 22 February 2008.
