In its continuing effort to safely expand and support commercial unmanned aircraft operations in U.S. airspace, the Federal Aviation Administration has now granted more than 1,000 Section 333 exemption approvals. As of today, the agency has issued 1,008 such exemptions. Companies and individuals from a broad spectrum of industries are taking advantage of the Section [&]

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Responding to recent incidents in which unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), also known as “drones,” interfered with manned aircraft involved in wildland firefighting operations, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is supporting the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Forest Service in their simple message to drone operators: If you fly; we [&]

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Well, not quite… not yet anyway. But it is a profession that can expect to face major changes in the coming decades. During the definition phase of SESAR I was the “owner”, on behalf of the airline group, of the concept of operations we were developing under the expert guidance of a colleague from KLM. [&]

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For many years, theses on automation in both the air traffic management and the cockpit context used expressions like “human in the loop”, “human centered”, “human the final decision maker” and so on. Air traffic control and pilot unions liked these expressions because they saw in them an assurance that their jobs would be preserved [&]

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BluSky Services is a successful consultancy that looks back on a history of more than a decade. It is customary to look back on the history of a company by listing the most important events that formed its shape over the years, to present old and not so old photos showing how the company premises [&]

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The FAA and the European Union have announced their intention to extend and expand their cooperative work toward providing seamless air traffic services for aircraft flying between the United States and Europe. FAA Administrator Michael Huerta and the EC’s Director General for Mobility and Transport, Mr. Joao Aguiar Machado, signed a Letter of Intent on [&]

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The FAA has made significant progress in improving runway safety at U.S. airports over the past 15 years by working with other members of the aviation community on education, training, marking and lighting, standard runway safety areas, new technology and airfield improvements. The FAA plans to build on that success by working with airport sponsors [&]

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Ever since air traffic control was invented in the previous century, the roles of pilot and air traffic controller had been clearly defined and (most of the time…) also adhered to. The pilot flies the aircraft and the controller issues clearances to ensure separation between aircraft. While this is a bit of an oversimplification, it [&]

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United Airlines (NYSE: UAL) and its employees will commemorate LGBT Pride Month this June by marching in parades, sponsoring events and hosting celebrations at destinations across the airlines global route network. But more than the festivities, the company is marking this historic Pride Month  one in which the U.S. Supreme Court may rule on [&]

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The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced a partnership with industry to explore the next steps in unmanned aircraft operations beyond the type of operations the agency proposed in the draft small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) rule it published in February. “Government has some the best and brightest minds in aviation, [&]

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AEA’s and IATA’s European office are located in the same building in a fancy neighborhood of Brussels. The IATA office moved to the European capital from London several years ago to be nearer to the EU institutions and Eurocontrol and co-locating it with AEA looked like a good idea. It was. I was an Assistant [&]

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One thing is certain. The seemingly amazing but actually quite simple technology that made drones, these small and not so small aircraft, accessible to almost anyone caught the regulators responsible for keeping our skies safe unawares. Once it was no longer possible to ignore the presence of the new kind of flying machine or threat [&]

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U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced a significant NextGen milestone with the completion of En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM), a highly advanced computer system used by air traffic controllers to safely manage high-altitude traffic. “Looking at the future of air travel, we know that there will be more planes in our skies and more people in our [&]

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Having written about the NAVYA driverless shuttle I was of course very keen to meet the beast in person and to try her out in a real, down to Earth environment. Last Wednesday it was so far… In fact the NAVYA we got to see was a first generation prototype but if this version is [&]

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If I recall correctly, 1 April 12 years ago was a nice spring day, quite unlike what we are facing this year. For us, the founders of BluSky Services (the owner of the Roger-Wilco blog) in any case the sun was out and we were full of enthusiasm and hope. The future looked bright indeed. [&]

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NAVYA Technology will be hosting a demo of their driverless vehicle on 8 and 21 April at their test facility in Lyon, France. You can read more about the NAVYA shuttle here. BluSky Services has been invited to attend the demo on 8 April and we will be more than happy to be present there [&]

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In my long and varied aviation career I have had the extraordinarily good luck of working in practically every niche and corner of this wonderful industry. Air traffic controller, ATC system builder, ICAO officer, IATA assistant director, consultant… you name it. Over the years this meant a slow but very effective accumulation of knowledge and [&]

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Old hands out there will not find much news in this article, though if you have not yet happened on my rumblings about airline behavior, you may in fact find it interesting. In fact, I am aiming for the attention of the many young air traffic controllers and others who still come to work every [&]

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There is a very interesting article in the 2-15 March issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology. They launch the story by saying that “after more than 10 years of talks, a single airspace in Europe is no closer to reality”. For someone new to this game, this would sound ominous indeed. For us veterans, [&]

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When we say “airport” the picture that most easily comes into one’s mind is of aircraft moving around or waiting parked at the gate. A poor second is the masses of people milling around in the terminal, part of the organized chaos designed to ensure that in the end each and every one of them [&]

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