Air Transport

Scandinavian air navigation authorities are expecting to complete definition work on a revised plan to unify airspace across Denmark and Sweden by the middle of this year, writes David Kaminski-Morrow.

Their efforts are aimed at defining an organisation that will provide air traffic management services across the whole of Danish and Swedish airspace, with the exception of aerodrome control.

The two countries are revisiting work carried out on two earlier projects – known as NUAC and Skaane – with a view to restructuring them into a single programme.

NUAC was originally initiated in 2000 as a project to unify Nordic upper airspace over four countries.

The Skaane project, taken up two years later, was devised to focus on Danish control of southern Swedish airspace. But the two programmes were postponed in 2004 in order to assess their strategic direction.

Speaking to Flight International at the recent Jane’s ATC Maastricht 2006 Conference, Swedish air navigation service director Thomas Allard said that the definition work is aimed at “establishing a business case” for the revised programme.

Three possible scenarios for a joint enterprise between Danish air traffic control service Naviair and its Swedish counterpart have been put forward. One proposal is to merge the two organisations into a single company operating three control centres at Stockholm, Copenhagen and Malmo.

Other options include retaining the original NUAC and Skaane concepts or creating a close co-operation venture with certain common interests.