Disruptive technologies in air traffic management

Abstract

Air Traffic Management (ATM) is a conservative sector in which technological modernisation follows an evolutionary path, at best. This evolution is predominantly shaped by regulation and the monopolistic infrastructure operators, the national Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs). Technological disruptions, on the other hand, are associated with sectors in which market forces play a stronger role and where new entrants can shake up dominant players by applying a new disruptive approach. In the absence of market forces the SESAR program was set up by the EU to promote technological modernisation in the sector by means of funding development and deployment of new ATM technologies in cooperation with the sector and according to the so called ATM Masterplan. Additionally the European Commission is favouring market opening and competitive tendering for some ATM related services. Can this setup achieve the modernisation and technological transformation of the sector? Or will it eventually be disrupted from players outside the traditional ATM community namely the emerging Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) industry that is actively developing new ways to provide air navigation services?