EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities for the Grant “Airborne capabilities for supporting reducing ATM environmental footprint” (HORIZON-SESAR-2025-DES-IR-02-WA5-3)

1. Strategic Fit with Flagship EU Agendas

• European Green Deal & Fit-for-55: Direct contribution through CO₂ / non-CO₂ reduction technologies (WER, climate-optimised trajectories, geometric altimetry).

• Sustainable & Smart Mobility Strategy: Accelerates pillar 2 (Making aviation sustainable) and pillar 3 (Innovation & digitalisation).

• Single European Sky (SES 2+) & ATM Master Plan: Topic explicitly placed inside SESAR Wave 5 priorities, ensuring fast-track to operational deployment once validated.

• Digital Europe & EU Space Policy: Heavy use of Galileo/EGNOS for geometric altimetry and exploitation of Copernicus/ECMWF data layers for contrail avoidance.

2. Single Market Access & Deployment Potential

• 450 + million end-users benefit from quieter, cleaner flights; airlines gain uniform procedures across 27 Member States, 30 FABs and 500+ airports.

• Enables seamless EU-wide equipage mandates (e.g., FMS updates, A/A data-link for WER) that yield economy-of-scale savings compared with fragmented national roll-outs.

• Early alignment positions EU industry to export standards to ~190 ICAO States once proven in the world’s largest integrated air market.

3. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Grant requires minimum 3 entities from 3 countries, but SESAR JU’s network (EUROCONTROL, EASA, ANSPs, Airbus, Lufthansa, DFS, ENAV, etc.) offers instant access to:

• Pan-European flight data via Network Manager (NM)

• 30+ real-time simulation platforms & 15 live flight trial sites

• Joint standardisation task forces inside EUROCAE, RTCA, EUROCONTROL, ICAO.

• Facilitates living-lab trials across mixed airspaces (oceanic, continental, high-density TMAs) impossible to replicate in a single country.

4. EU Regulatory Harmonisation Advantages

• EASA & EUROCAE frameworks provide a single certification route for new avionics (WER sensors, dual baro-geo altimetry displays, FMS software).

• SESAR validation results feed directly into EU Implementing Regulations & CS-ACNS specs, accelerating mandatory uptake and removing national divergence.

• Common NM procedures for probabilistic flight-plan constraints avoid bilateral Letters of Agreement—critical for climate-optimised “eco-yoyo” profiles.

5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem

• 5,000+ researchers in SESAR 3, Clean Aviation and Shift2Rail clusters; easy to build multi-sectoral consortia (airframer, ANSP, sat-nav, AI, cloud).

• Leverage Galileo High Accuracy Service, EGNOS V3, HPC/AI infrastructure from EuroHPC and DIH networks for trajectory-optimisation algorithms.

• Synergies with Clean Aviation projects on novel wing designs enable in-flight WER demonstrations with next-gen aircraft prototypes.

6. Funding Synergies & Blending Opportunities

• Connecting Europe Facility 2 (CEF-Transport) for post-R&I deployment grants (e.g., ADS-C ground upgrades, NM interface tweaks).

• InvestEU & EIB Green Transport loans to scale WER equipage fleets.

• LIFE Programme for complementary climate-impact monitoring pilots (contrail detection).

• EIC Accelerator for high-risk SMEs developing enabling sensors or edge-computing FMS add-ons.

• Regional ERDF funds can co-finance ground infrastructure in cohesion regions, ensuring EU-wide roll-out.

7. Scale & Impact Potential

• 20–30 Mt CO₂-eq/year potential reduction once 70 % EU fleet adopts WER & climate-optimised routing.

• Up to 10 % fuel burn savings on paired WER flights; 500 ft vertical separation possibility ups capacity 15–20 % in dense corridors.

• Harmonised procedures allow central NM optimisation, enabling network-wide eco-sensitive area avoidance without local capacity penalties.

• Demonstrated concepts become ICAO SARPs, positioning EU as global rule-setter.

8. Specific Pan-European Opportunities per R&I Element

• Environment-Driven Trajectories: Combine ECMWF ensemble weather, CAMS climate functions & NM tactical slot data to create EU-wide probabilistic optimisation service.

• WER Scaling: Exploit wide EU traffic database to develop AI pairing predictor; validate in North Atlantic, FABEC & Mediterranean corridors for global representativeness.

• Geometric Altimetry: Capitalise on Galileo OSNMA/HA capability—an EU-only differentiator—enhancing safety while showcasing EU space assets.

• TMA Dynamic Management: Test cross-border TMAs (e.g., Brussels/Amsterdam/Ruhr) enabled by common route-structure algorithms, increasing cumulative impact.

• Voluntary Climate Mitigation in Low-Density Airspace: Use Baltic, Greek islands, Spanish FIR night windows as operational sandboxes where low traffic permits eco-yoyo trials.

9. Recommended Consortium Blueprint

• Tier-1 Airline & FOC provider (e.g., Air France-KLM + Lufthansa Systems)

• Two complementary ANSPs (high-density & low-density) plus EUROCONTROL NM

• Avionics/OEM (e.g., Thales Avionics, Airbus UpNext)

• Meteorological/Climate Institute (ECMWF, DLR, Met Office)

• Research Universities & SMEs (AI optimisation, GNSS augmentation)

• EASA & EUROCAE observers for direct standard pathway

• Geographic balance: North-South-East to maximise Cohesion eligibility and test varied operational contexts.

10. Intellectual-Property & Standardisation Edge

• Horizon lump-sum model ensures lean cost management, fostering SME entry.

• EU open-science policies facilitate FAIR data, strengthening Europe’s ATM Big-Data commons.

• Early engagement with EUROCAE WG-105, RTCA SC-228 for geometric altimetry and WG-119 for WER communications accelerates SDO buy-in.

11. Long-Term EU Value Proposition

• Creates first fully climate-optimised ATM continuum (planning – execution – post-ops) at continental scale.

• Bolsters EU autonomy in critical aviation technologies (GNSS-based altimetry, A/A data-link) reducing dependency on non-EU systems.

• Strengthens industrial competitiveness, sustaining high-skill jobs across 27 countries and reinforcing the EU’s leadership in sustainable aviation globally.