News

Representatives of ROMATSA and BULATSA held their fifteenth meeting of the DANUBE FAB ANSP Board on the 28th of October, via web conference. The meeting was co-chaired by the two Directors General of ROMATSA and BULATSA and was an opportunity for the Board’s representatives to take stock of the latest intra/inter FAB developments, to provide information on the status of the current operations and to agree on the way forward, so as to prioritize the DANUBE FAB activities and projects.

In the actual context of COVID-19 pandemic, the members of the ANSP Board unanimously agreed to use the current crisis to rethink the strategic matters of DANUBE FAB in order to better synchronise the impact of the recent EU legislative proposals towards digitalization and sustainable developments with the FAB’s related planned activities for the future.

Members of the ANSP Board were updated of the progress made against the strategic planning and reporting and analysed the progress of the FAB High Priority projects.

Notwithstanding the actual crisis generated by the of COVID-19 pandemic, the members of the board reiterated their commitment to continue to implement Free Route Airspace FAB-wide and beyond, with the extension of SEE FRA with the Slovakian airspace as of January 2021. In addition, in the same context, the members of the board noted the intensive work for developing a DANUBE FAB Technical Architecture document as a basis for a future impact study of the latest EU developments regarding the implementation of SES.

Subsequently, the ANSP Board members debated the budget for 2021 and decided that some of the costs for 2021 to be reanalysed in the context of the current cash-flow crisis. They also discussed the outcome of the InterFAB events attended by DANUBE FAB, the status of the training activities and on the Commission’s proposal to update the Single European Sky (SES) regulatory framework (SES2+). Regarding the latter, the Board agreed to collaborate to the maximum extent to analyse the impact of the proposed SES2+ framework on DANUBE FAB ANSPs.

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Due to COVID-19 pandemic safety recommendations, DANUBE FAB Governing Council held its fifteenth meeting on the 29th of October via web conference. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Ministries of Transport, Civil and Military Aviation Authorities, National Supervisory Authorities and ANSPs from Romania and from the Republic of Bulgaria. In accordance with the DANUBE FAB Observers Policy, delegates from the Republic of North Macedonia and Republic of Moldova attended the meeting as Observers.

Main items for discussion of the meeting were the NSA Board and ANSP Board reports, the status of current DANUBE FAB plans for 2020 and the high priority projects under the Annual Plan. The members of the Council unanimously recognised that the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly and economically impacted every aspect of the aviation industry, including air traffic management and as a result, agreed to put an additional effort in order to rethink the strategic matters of DANUBE FAB.

During the meeting, the Council’s members analysed the prospects for the FAB developments, both in political and economic terms, as well as regarding the technical and operational particularities reported by NSA Board and by the ANSP Board. In this context, the Council took note of the extension of Free Route Airspace implementation FAB-wide and beyond, once Slovakia will join SEE FRA in January 2021. The Council highlighted the importance of ensuring all necessary resources in order to perform the technical rationalization and infrastructure related projects and took note of ANSP Board proposal to use the DANUBE FAB Technical Architecture document as a basis for a future impact study of the latest EU developments regarding the implementation of SES.

This meeting involved discussions on aspects of multilateral cooperation within the DANUBE FAB, including the interFAB cooperation, other FAB activities and outputs of recent meetings and related external activities, so as the European Commission’s proposal to update the Single European Sky (SES) regulatory framework (SES2+). The Council members took note of the ANSP Board proposal to collaborate for analysing and monitoring the evolution of the SES2+ legislative proposal.

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The next round of DANUBE FAB Governing Bodies meetings is planned for spring 2021.