CCL Receives SES Award 2019 for SECSI FRA Project

Croatia Control (CCL) received the European Commission’s Single European Sky Award 2019 today afternoon for its multinational SECSI FRA implementation project (South East Common Sky Initiative Free Route Airspace), which went operational on February 1, 2018.
 
Partners on the project included CCL, as well as air navigation service providers from Austria, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro. The award was given in the network performance improvement category by the European Commission at the SES awards ceremony on the occasion of the 2019 World ATM Conference (World Air Traffic Management Congress) being held March 12 to 14 in Madrid.
 
“This project will enable airlines to choose the shortest routes connecting Central and Southeast Europe, including the traffic flow towards Turkey and the Middle East. Airspace users will contribute to environmental protection by reducing fuel consumption and decreasing CO2 and NOx emissions with shorter flight times,” said Vlado Bagarić, CCL’s Director General. Potential per day savings could amount to 1,940 NM of flight distance, 285 minutes of flight time, with the fuel consumption reduction of 8,000 kg and CO2 emission reduction of 25,500 kg.
 
The project contributes to achieving the European Commission’s goals regarding the implementation of Free Route Airspace across Europe and also fulfils airspace users’ requests for having multiple route options available for the same destination. The project, supported by the Eurocontrol’s Network Manager, led to creating one of the largest cross-border free route airspace structures in Europe, and is a major step towards achieving the common European Free Route Airspace by 2022.
 
CCL is among the exhibitors at the Madrid congress this year too, presenting its own AMC Portal. The AMC Portal is a centralized web-tool for informing users about the current airspace status and planned airspace activities. It enables the registered users to make airspace reservations and communicate directly with the national airspace management organization, which makes activity planning easier and all airspace users safer.
 
Controllers can obtain all relevant information quickly and easily with CroVIBE, an internal wireless operational staff informing application and network, which was presented too along SimA, a software solution for creating and analyzing simulation exercises.
 
CCL will also present its accomplishments at the COOPANS Alliance’s stand. COOPANS is a leading example of European industrial partnership and cooperation between six air navigation service providers from Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Portugal and Croatia. COOPANS members received a SES award three years ago for their harmonized air traffic management systems which is a unique case in Europe.