Idea of single Pacific airspace revived

Samisoni Pareti
Fying across the Pacific, crews have up to five air traffic managers that they need to liaise with. But if the Association of South Pacific Airlines (ASPA) has its way, the five different airspace managements in the region should all merge into one unified airspace. This means that instead of liaising with ATM (air traffic management) systems in the United States, French Polynesia, New Zealand, Fiji and Australia when crossing the Pacific Ocean, airlines will only communicate with one.

ASPA in its presentation at a regional aviation meeting in Samoa last October called for the establishment of a unified airspace in the Pacific.

“The airlines have a strong interest in the safe and efficient management of upper (and lower) airspace,” said an ASPA paper presented on the subject at the Pacific Aviation Safety Organisation Council meeting in Apia.

In view of this, the association said all the five flight information regions in the Pacific ought to “be unified to facilitate the seamless ATMs of upper airspace.”

“There should be only one ATS (air traffic service) provider of upper airspace management in the Pacific region to be selected through a tender process.”

ASPA’s secretary-general George Faktaufon who presented the paper at the Apia meeting said most of the groundwork on such a concept had been done.

He sighted, for instance, the resolutions of a May 1998 meeting in Suva of Pacific transport ministers where details of a unified airspace was discussed. In that meeting, Faktaufon said the ministers also decided that:

• All Pacific Islands Forum member countries should have an interest in the management and determination of ATS provision and a direct involvement in how this is to be accomplished for upper airspace management.
• A cost-benefit approach to be adopted to identify the benefits to states from unified airspace management.
• An upper airspace study to be conducted to develop proposals and report to the Forum Officials Committee.

“The study was completed in 2001 but unfortunately this initiative was shelved at the Civil Aviation Ministers meeting later that year,” said Faktaufon.

Lack of agreement on the structure of the sole regional ATS, as well as revenue sharing including its location was said to be amongst the sore points.

Fiji, according to a Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat paper, had been a proponent of such a unified ATS but only if it’s located at its international airport in Nadi. All that is required is for islands states to form a company that will buy out Airport Fiji Limited’s current ATS.

“This option excludes Australia and New Zealand and possibly Papua New Guinea,” said the Forum paper. It said this would allow “states of similar socio-economic and geographic conditions to co-operate in a joint venture”.

Such a proposal would encompass the FIRs (flight information regions) of Nadi, Honiara, Nauru, Auckland, Oakland (California), Federated States of Micronesia and Marshall Islands, the document said.

In pushing for a Fiji base, the Forum paper which was prepared by Fiji’s Civil Aviation Authority, listed the benefits of a unified ATS located at Nadi. There would be no need to relocate equipment, the paper said. Most if not all staff will be local, although provisions will also be made for regional recruitment.

It claimed that the start-up costs would be far less than the US$9 million identified in a 2001 study for capital works and US$9 million for operating expenditure. That study estimated a revenue of US$19.24 million.

Faktaufon said ASPA is proposing a similar concept where all Pacific islands states form a company to either run its single, unified FIR or tender it out to a service provider. In this, islands states get to earn revenue from the use of its airspace.

Rough calculations show that a single ATM could earn up to US$30 million. And if operational cost amounts to US$20 million, a profit of US$10 million could then be available to fund aviation infrastructure developments or improvements in the Pacific.

Faktaufon said ASPA had been promoting a single airspace management system since the early 1980s.

“There were two reasons for this move. First, the airlines who pay for the management of airspace do not really need all the service providers (air traffic control centres which are Australia/New Zealand/Fiji/French Polynesia/USA) because new satellite communications allow one centre to provide all traffic management services all over the Pacific’s airspace.

“Secondly, a unified airspace management system will reduce costs and allow surplus revenue to be used for aviation infrastructure developments in the Pacific islands region because this new entity will be jointly owned by the states, and if they so wish, invite airlines to be involved.”

Such an idea, of course, is not new as it has been floated on many occasions ever since the concept was promoted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) at its Rio conference of May 1998. Actually, some regional airspace cooperatives outlived this ICAO conference, like COCESNA, the Central American Corporation for Air Navigation Services, that manages the air space of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama and Nicaragua. COCESNA was launched in 1960.

Faktaufon recalled that a similar concept had existed in the Pacific until the early 1980s.

“Fiji inherited the Nadi FIR when many Pacific islands states were colonies.

“It didn’t really matter then because their masters (UK, France, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA) were involved in the running of Nadi Airport through an organisation named SPATC.

“However, when Fiji took over the ATM in the late 1970s, several Pacific islands states progressively became independent.

“In the early 1980s, some of them began to agitate about getting some revenue from their sovereign airspace which Fiji controlled.

“Fiji continued to oppose the islands states’ demand which resulted in Samoa and Tonga withdrawing from Nadi and realigning with New Zealand.”

ASPA is pleased about such a single unified airspace management concept because it ties in nicely with its proposed satellite-based communication network known as PASTEL.

Such a system will allow for easy and cheap communication between aircraft and ground-based operation. Once operational, airlines in the region can use its Pacific VSAT network for e-ticketing, email, transmission of advanced passenger information lists, direct voice and data communication with remote offices as well as access of centralised application services such as a reservation system.

Faktaufon said the beauty about PASTEL is that its use can be extended to include meteorological services, search and rescue operations, as well as for immigration and custom purposes. ASPA had tasked Airways New Zealand to study the proposal in detail.

“The company has since developed a business plan on PASTEL and we hope to endorse this at our next meeting in June. Airways New Zealand is also proposing that either airlines join governments in funding PASTEL or the installation cost be borne by the company as it can recover this through usage fees.”

An initial estimate had put the start-up cost of PASTEL at $3 million.

Faktaufon said once online, PASTEL would cost airlines only 1/5th of what they currently pay local telecom providers.