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and 1,500 fewer controllers on board, a at ways that may meaningfully address the challenges of ATCO
number that has declined for at least the past training.
11 years.”

Inter-Operability of ATC Systems
Can ATCO Mobility be Part of Technological advances have enabled inter-operability of ATC
The Solution? systems, and therefore the ability to conduct CNS services at
Eurocontrol sees remote air traffic control as longer ranges, including in airspaces outside the State. The
a solution to the unpredictable demand within primary applications today are delegations of small pieces of
European airspace. Traditionally, the term typically contiguous airspace, either on a permanent basis or
ATCO mobility has had a strong geographic contingent on specific circumstances (such as the failure of sys-
association, meaning that mobility implied a tems in a neighbouring state).
physical relocation of an ATCO from one Area
Control Centre (ACC) or ATS unit to another,
or less frequently, one State to another. Eurocontrol says these arrangements are subject to binding
State agreements and can be fraught with issues of liability and
The problem lies in that the demand for application of national legislation. Nonetheless, it is significant
ATCOs can rapidly change throughout the that inter-operability has opened up possibilities to progress from
course of the week or even the day. A more delegation of air traffic services for the purposes of contingency,
responsive solution than physically relocating to the sharing of the provision of the air traffic services (and
ATCOs would clearly be beneficial.
importantly, the sharing of ATCO resources) of larger portions
Toward this end, Eurocontrol introduced of airspaces on a routine basis.
remote or cross-border operations, where
ATCOs do not physically move but rather con-
trol airspace outside that normally controlled It is this notion of ATCO mobility (i.e. cross-border operations) that
by their ACC – potentially in another State. In has attracted the most attention as a potential way to resolve
this case, qualified ATCOs may be assigned to capacity shortfalls and ATCO staff shortages. “Scalability is an
the airspaces and sectors where the demand attractive feature of this approach as it gives flexibility to assign
is greatest, irrespective of national boundar- controllers to the sectors where the need is the greatest at any
ies, with potentially attractive gains in terms given moment, irrespective of the national boundary or ACC in
of flexibility and scalability. which the controller is located.
“However, a significant challenge to this
approach is the willingness of States to enter
into agreements that enable the delegation “If it is possible for two ANSPs to share the air traffic manage-
of Air Traffic Services (ATS) in their sovereign ment of an airspace that covers the common boundary of two
airspace, taking into account national security States, then technically it should be possible for this idea to be
issues,” Eurocontrol says. expanded to include controllers in one State/ANSP controlling
airspace in another State/ANSP. This could happen as a routine
By implementing cross-border ATC provision, agreement, or when one ANSP does not have enough ATCOs to
European airspace will become more dynamic enable the full capacity of their airspace to be used at any given
to the seemingly unpredictable demand for air time,” Eurocontrol says.
traffic control. A given sector may not have
much air traffic and those ATCOs could be uti-
lized more efficiently by reassigning them to
busier airspace. In practice, this would reduce
delay times and allow for a more economically
efficient system.

For both types of ATCO mobility, a significant
issue is the time taken to ‘convert’ (i.e. obtain
a new rating endorsement) from one sector
group to a new sector group. This is usually
considerably longer than the time taken for
a pilot to convert from one aircraft type to
another.
A Think Paper by Eurocontrol addresses why
ATCO conversion training is challenging and,
in complex airspaces, takes so long. It looks
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