The European Union will support with almost €4 million from the TEN-T Programme a project to support and accelerate Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) and Airspace Management (ASM) with a view of optimising resources at European airports and progressing towards an efficient and flexible use of airspace.

Eurocontrol, the “European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation”, will implement a project that will count with funding of almost €4 million from the TEN-T Programme to support and accelerate Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) and Airspace Management (ASM) with a view of optimising resources at European airports and progressing towards an efficient and flexible use of airspace. Eurocontrol published a report on May 2012 which stated that the flights in Europe were expected to decline by 1.3% in 2012.

In particular, the project will support and accelerate the implementation of A-CDM processes at 11 selected European airports. Eurocontrol will also look beyond this first batch of airports with the target of deploying A-CDM in a number of other airports by 2014. The project will also support the acceleration of collaborative civil-military ASM solutions to ensure an optimal use of airspace. This will be achieved through the deployment by Eurocontrol of a new ASM coordination tool at the rate of four EU countries per year.

A specific objective of the project concerns the procurement of the related software and hardware in The Netherlands and in Romania, thereby allowing the flexible use of airspace. The project is set to be completed by the end of 2014. It was selected for funding under the 2011 TEN-T Annual Call.