ENAIRE and DSNA meet with EUROCONTROL in Barcelona to consolidate their airspace management

Florian Guillermet and Ángel Luis Arias, the respective directors of DSNA and ENAIRE, the air navigation service providers in France and Spain, met today at the Barcelona Air Traffic Control Centre to consolidate the progress made to coordinate and improve the operating procedures for the cross-border airspace of ENAIRE and DSNA in order to improve the current interface on which the various air traffic flows between the Barcelona and Madrid Air Traffic Control Centres in Spain, and the centres in Bordeaux, Brest and Marseille in France, rely.

During the meeting, the two directors reviewed and endorsed the joint initiatives between Spain and France, which are consistent with EUROCONTROL's actions and are intended to make the design and use of the network of routes between the two countries more efficient, in terms of additional improvements in the Barcelona-Bordeaux interface itself, collateral connections between the Bordeaux and Brest control centres and the Madrid control centre, and the interface between the Marseille and Barcelona control centres.

ENAIRE and DSNA updated EUROCONTROL on the progress and areas of improvement in the operating procedures between the Barcelona and Bordeaux control centres, as well as on the improvements planned for the Madrid-Bordeaux, Madrid-Brest and Barcelona-Marseille interfaces In addition, and as part of the airspace coordination efforts, mitigation measures at the European network level were reviewed to pave the way to transition, starting in April, the air traffic management system in the Reims Control Centre, and the planned traffic re-routing. As in 2019, ENAIRE will play an important role in accepting traffic for the benefit of the European network. They also reviewed both countries' initiatives to implement the Free-Route feature, which will be used to design more efficient airspace routes and help airlines save fuel, as well as reduce atmospheric emissions.

In the technical field, the officials reviewed joint initiatives involving sharing the information from the air traffic management systems used by the two Providers which will provide for improved performance between the two airspace interfaces.

EUROCONTROL, led by its Network Management Director, Iacopo Prissinotti, took part with its management team to support the important work that is being done by both providers to improve the efficiency of the interface between Spain and France, for the benefit of both countries and, by extension, of the entire network of European routes. He said “The EUROCONTROL Network Manager’s (NM) close collaboration with ENAIRE and DSNA as well as with all the other operational stakeholders is key to ensure the highest service quality for highly performing, efficient and sustainable aviation in Europe. We are continuously improving together with our partners using our network wide tools and with the digital transformation NM is currently undertaking.”

Both Arias and Guillermet noted "the spirit of collaboration and proactivity of both countries to improve the operating procedures for their mutual benefit and to boost the overall efficiency of the network".