Air Transport

Belgium’s SN Brussels Airlines has begun a six-month trial of a “groundbreaking” digital flight information system that Eurocontrol hopes will eventually be adopted by other airlines.

Since 18 October, SN pilots have been able to access, in real time, flight information and meterological data stored in the European Aeronautical Information Services Database (EAD) via a digital ground-aircraft datalink.

The programme is part of Eurocontrol’s Digital Operational Terminal Information Service (D-OTIS) and comes under the Brussels-based agency’s Cascade programme, which co-ordinates work on controller/pilot datalink communications and automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast applications.

SN has modified the communications systems of all of its 32 BAE Systems Avro RJ85/RJ100s and BAe146s, three Airbus A319s and three A330-300s. The system was developed by Sita Information Networking Computing, while Belgocontrol provides the EAD services. “It is a groundbreaking programme,” says Eurocontrol, “which we believe is the first of its type in the world.”