GENEVA—Facing a potential onslaught of new users, such as the owners and operators of advanced air mobility (AAM) vehicles, air traffic management will need time to adapt, Andreea Perca, uncrewed air system traffic management (UTM) development manager at Swiss air navigation service provider Skyguide, said May 20.
The reality check comes as startups are progressing in the development of electric-vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles (eVTOL) and other novel aircraft, promising they will sell and fly in large numbers. Those would-be airframers should count on a gradual change of air traffic services—especially in the lower airspace, where they intend to operate—as opposed to seeing their needs accommodated immediately.
“We have a part to play,” Perca said, speaking during a panel discussion at European business aviation show EBACE. “We follow the development of UTM. As long as humans are in the loop, there is no way we can achieve high numbers of aircraft in the air.”
Airspace is a limited resource. “Even if we had separate systems for AAM vehicles [crewed or uncrewed] and conventional aircraft, they would have to coexist,” Perca said. “We will have to test that step by step.” Part of the novelty is the potential emergence of a new status: autonomous flights, in addition to IFR and VFR flights.
While startups expect to rely on a massive sharing of data to enable large-scale operations in the lower airspace, air navigation service providers may not be able to follow the approach. “That is a vision we would like to achieve,” Perca said. “However, we do not necessarily own all the data in our different infrastructures. Hence legal issues.”
As a bottom line, change may not be trivial and the 10-15 years eVTOL startups refer to for the implementation of their master plan is fast, by air traffic management standards, she said.
From the beginning, public acceptance will be critical. “In Switzerland, local communities were part of the discussions for the creation of a mixed uncrewed-crewed vehicles airspace,” she said. And those traffics, instead of being segregated, may eventually be integrated, she added.
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