SESAR research was the focus of debates, sessions and a dedicated stand at AEROdays, the 8th edition of European Aeronautics Days, a flagship event of the European Commission.
Organised under the EU Romanian Presidency, the conference and exhibition welcomed over 800 researchers and representatives from the aviation and aerospace industry to hear about the results from Horizon 2020 projects.
The importance of addressing aviation’s impact on the environment, tackling capacity and accommodating new air vehicles, were just some of the themes that ran through the opening plenary. In her opening keynote, Clara de la Torre, Director for Transport from the Research and Innovation Directorate General, stressed that aviation must do its part to combat climate change —striving to be as environmentally friendly as possible. She also called for action to implement technologies delivered by the SESAR Joint Undertaking, which she said had the potential to bring significant gains to the overall performance of air transport.
In his intervention, Jean Brice Dumont, Executive Vice President of Airbus Engineering, said that we are reaching the limits of conventional aviation. In order to accommodate the growing traffic, the industry would have to reinvent itself and reach a convergence of technologies to achieve sustainable aviation, he added.
At the same time, the air transport system for the 21st century must meet the citizens’ mobility needs. In his keynote, Florian Guillermet, Executive Director of the Joint Undertaking, reminded the audience of the need to keep the focus on the passenger when researching and developing new solutions in aviation and air traffic management (ATM). He also echoed earlier calls for the need to speed up implementation, noting the availability of technological solutions.
SESAR experts presented a number of innovations in the pipeline to transform ATM, in a series of sessions addressing airport operations, air traffic services, network operations, the underlying infrastructure and drones. The SESAR Joint Undertaking also welcomed conference visitors to its stand in order to discover more about the results of the programme so far.
Presentations delivered by SESAR JU staff at AEROdays:
Innovations in airport operations
Innovations in air traffic services
Optimised ATM network services
