SESAR projects and partners were among the winners of the ATM Awards 2019, each judged to be outstanding performers spearheading innovation and leading the industry to ever greater performance. The awards attracted entries from across the global air transport industry, highlighting major innovation and projects that stand to enhance airspace capacity, safety and environmental sustainability.

SESAR innovation was recognised in five of the six awards categories:

Service provision: The ATEAM Network Collaborative Management (NCM), bringing together Lufthansa Group with Ryanair, Air France, British Airways and EasyJet, received third prize in this category for its collaborative work with other stakeholders to reduce network inefficiencies in air traffic flow capacity management.

Enabling technology: SESAR member, Skyguide, won first prize in this category for its work on shifting to service oriented architecture, a pre-requisite for system-wide information management and the implementation of the virtual centre concept and related business models.

Environment: xStream, a large-scale demonstration led by DSNA and involving NATS, Skyguide, Eurocontrol and DFS, received first prize in this category for delivering ready-to-use operational cross-border arrival management solutions following trials in Paris, Zurich, Frankfurt, leading to the first implementation at London Gatwick in October 2019. This category also recognised steps taken to implement the SESAR solution free route by the Borealis Alliance, allowing airlines to fly more direct routes, reducing fuel burn and emissions.

Research and innovation: SESAR innovation picked up all three prizes in this category. Thales with COOPANS, DFS, DSNA, Enaire, Enav, Eurocontrol, Frequentis, Hungarocontrol, Indra, Leonardo, LPS SR, NATS, SINTEF, skyguide, ANS CR, received first prize for demonstrating the virtual centre concept, and the decoupling data service provision from air traffic service provision. Meanwhile, second place went to partners in the DIGITS large-scale demonstration (Airbus with Air France, British Airway, EasyJet, Iberia, Novair, Wizz Air, Eurocontrol, DFS, NATS, Enav, Indra, Airtel, Thales, Leonardo, Honeywell, COOPANS) for successfully trialling the exchange of trajectory data, making traffic flows more fluid and aircraft speed easier to manage. Finally, third prize went to the GAINS large-scale demonstration for showing how solutions developed for scheduled airlines can be adapted for use by general aviation. The project was coordinated by Helios with AOPA UK, Pildo Labs, Funke Avionics and Trig Avionics.

Runway and terminal area: Second place in this category went to Austro Control with DLR for developing so-called ‘’plate lines’ to accelerate the decay of wake vortices by around 30 %. The partners estimate that optimised separations could reduce average delays per flight, which in turn would results in reduced fuel burn in the TMA and greater throughput. An annual assessment had already indicated that a potential reduction of tactical delay for pairwise dynamic separations could be in the order of over EUR 1 million for a large airport.