U.K. NATS Systems Failure
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He has a choice. He has the whole of Europe to move his aircraft to if he'd rather operate in "better" ATC regimes.
As I recall the complaint that Stansted was suffering more than Heathrow was upheld but not because of any favouritism although I believe COVID may have interrupted the follow up inquiry. Now of course the whole world is suffering with ATC staffing issues.
He has to tread carefully so as not to trigger a total review of ATC funding. Currently a 737 leaving a London Airport consumes the same ATC resources as a BA heavyjet but pays less. And a foreign heavyjet overflying consumes very little ATC resource but pays much more.
As I recall the complaint that Stansted was suffering more than Heathrow was upheld but not because of any favouritism although I believe COVID may have interrupted the follow up inquiry. Now of course the whole world is suffering with ATC staffing issues.
He has to tread carefully so as not to trigger a total review of ATC funding. Currently a 737 leaving a London Airport consumes the same ATC resources as a BA heavyjet but pays less. And a foreign heavyjet overflying consumes very little ATC resource but pays much more.
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He has a choice. He has the whole of Europe to move his aircraft to if he'd rather operate in "better" ATC regimes.
As I recall the complaint that Stansted was suffering more than Heathrow was upheld but not because of any favouritism although I believe COVID may have interrupted the follow up inquiry. Now of course the whole world is suffering with ATC staffing issues.
He has to tread carefully so as not to trigger a total review of ATC funding. Currently a 737 leaving a London Airport consumes the same ATC resources as a BA heavyjet but pays less. And a foreign heavyjet overflying consumes very little ATC resource but pays much more.
As I recall the complaint that Stansted was suffering more than Heathrow was upheld but not because of any favouritism although I believe COVID may have interrupted the follow up inquiry. Now of course the whole world is suffering with ATC staffing issues.
He has to tread carefully so as not to trigger a total review of ATC funding. Currently a 737 leaving a London Airport consumes the same ATC resources as a BA heavyjet but pays less. And a foreign heavyjet overflying consumes very little ATC resource but pays much more.
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I'm not sure having a choice for air traffic control is a good idea. UK does of course have a large number of ANSPs who compete to provide ATC in the airport's environment and even has some bits of airspace where you can get an ATC Service from a choice of providers but by and large I'd like one ANSP to be controlling all the aircraft in a particular bit of sky. How you chose that ANSP & fund it is a political decision.
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I'm not sure having a choice for air traffic control is a good idea. UK does of course have a large number of ANSPs who compete to provide ATC in the airport's environment and even has some bits of airspace where you can get an ATC Service from a choice of providers but by and large I'd like one ANSP to be controlling all the aircraft in a particular bit of sky. How you chose that ANSP & fund it is a political decision.
Distributed technologies mean you will soon be able to have proper and resilient decentralised markets without the current barriers to entry that exist and the ‘pretend competition’ we have at the moment.
Of course, your ANSP has to have some competency in technology. But thanks Corp Comms.
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Alba Gu Brath
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it shouldn’t last much longer, centralised monopolies with no proper scrutiny lead to huge waste and inertia, not to mention the issues with single points of failure and ‘whitewashing’ the facts we’ve seen.
Distributed technologies mean you will soon be able to have proper and resilient decentralised markets without the current barriers to entry that exist and the ‘pretend competition’ we have at the moment.
Of course, your ANSP has to have some competency in technology. But thanks Corp Comms.
Distributed technologies mean you will soon be able to have proper and resilient decentralised markets without the current barriers to entry that exist and the ‘pretend competition’ we have at the moment.
Of course, your ANSP has to have some competency in technology. But thanks Corp Comms.
Where do you get the application software that takes advantage? The problem with this market is twofold.
First it requires great investment by the software supplier for what is not much return, there aren't actually that many ANSPs to buy or licence it.
Second the market is dominated by a handful of large companies with an investment in 40 year old software to protect.
I know of an ANSP that needed to replace some ancillary software in the flight data area. The tenders were from the usual suspects plus a small software company. That tender was promising and would have brought more modern development processes but in the end it was marked down because of their lack of experience in the industry and knowledge of the standards applying to ATC software. The ANSP was worried that if there was a later issue the headlines would be even worse. A more modern version of nobody got sacked for buying IBM.
The solution to that as you say is probably a "disruptor" developing a solution outside of the industry but they'd need deep pockets which might limit the options to companies you may not like
Corporate NATS would probably welcome that. They just want to run an ATC service and have never liked being as much an engineering company as an ATC service provider.
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It really time to stop rigging the market.
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There is a third problem to overcome. Nobody actually knows what the user requirements for a current or future ATC technological system are. The requirements are mostly embedded in the existing technology and not written down.
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Distributed technology on its own won't bring much more than hardware redundancy if you just put "old" ATC software on it.
Where do you get the application software that takes advantage? The problem with this market is twofold.
First it requires great investment by the software supplier for what is not much return, there aren't actually that many ANSPs to buy or licence it.
Second the market is dominated by a handful of large companies with an investment in 40 year old software to protect.
I know of an ANSP that needed to replace some ancillary software in the flight data area. The tenders were from the usual suspects plus a small software company. That tender was promising and would have brought more modern development processes but in the end it was marked down because of their lack of experience in the industry and knowledge of the standards applying to ATC software. The ANSP was worried that if there was a later issue the headlines would be even worse. A more modern version of nobody got sacked for buying IBM.
The solution to that as you say is probably a "disruptor" developing a solution outside of the industry but they'd need deep pockets which might limit the options to companies you may not like
Corporate NATS would probably welcome that. They just want to run an ATC service and have never liked being as much an engineering company as an ATC service provider.
Where do you get the application software that takes advantage? The problem with this market is twofold.
First it requires great investment by the software supplier for what is not much return, there aren't actually that many ANSPs to buy or licence it.
Second the market is dominated by a handful of large companies with an investment in 40 year old software to protect.
I know of an ANSP that needed to replace some ancillary software in the flight data area. The tenders were from the usual suspects plus a small software company. That tender was promising and would have brought more modern development processes but in the end it was marked down because of their lack of experience in the industry and knowledge of the standards applying to ATC software. The ANSP was worried that if there was a later issue the headlines would be even worse. A more modern version of nobody got sacked for buying IBM.
The solution to that as you say is probably a "disruptor" developing a solution outside of the industry but they'd need deep pockets which might limit the options to companies you may not like
Corporate NATS would probably welcome that. They just want to run an ATC service and have never liked being as much an engineering company as an ATC service provider.
I agree there is no real market for disrupters with NATS controlling a cosy market of incumbents.
Distributed technology doesn’t (just) mean having multiple ‘servers’ it means open sourcing capability and removing the barriers to entry that are currently so firmly in place.
NATS with its billions of turnover is relying on the innovators NOT being able to solve its problems - that’s the fundamental issue with a monopoly.
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No amount of requirements will solve those problems.
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Reagan did it once, ATC went on strike, and put military controllers in their positions, it worked
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Let’s be clear, NATS has no software development competence and little competence in what is now understood to be hardware.
I agree there is no real market for disrupters with NATS controlling a cosy market of incumbents.
Distributed technology doesn’t (just) mean having multiple ‘servers’ it means open sourcing capability and removing the barriers to entry that are currently so firmly in place.
NATS with its billions of turnover is relying on the innovators NOT being able to solve its problems - that’s the fundamental issue with a monopoly.
I agree there is no real market for disrupters with NATS controlling a cosy market of incumbents.
Distributed technology doesn’t (just) mean having multiple ‘servers’ it means open sourcing capability and removing the barriers to entry that are currently so firmly in place.
NATS with its billions of turnover is relying on the innovators NOT being able to solve its problems - that’s the fundamental issue with a monopoly.
I think NATS partners are relying on there being no innovators. NATS long ago gave up any ability other than choosing it's partners from a list with little choice.
I'm intrigued as to how this open source idea works. I can see how a third party might develop a UAS product that you might be able to ring fence to particular airspace but I can't see how you could extend that to the mainstream ATC system. I've seen the horror across the industry at the thought of putting stuff on the cloud, mostly unfounded I'd add, so that would be way out of the comfort zone of both ANSPs & their airline customers.
By "without charge" you mean pass the cost onto the tax payer?
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I agree, NATS decided a long time ago to shut down it's software development department and also has little or no expertise in modern hardware. It decided to rely on "partners" to provide those areas of expertise. That probably wasn't wise, expecting your suppliers to fulfill your "intelligent customer" role requires a lot of trust that few suppliers, in my experience, deserve.
I think NATS partners are relying on there being no innovators. NATS long ago gave up any ability other than choosing it's partners from a list with little choice.
I'm intrigued as to how this open source idea works. I can see how a third party might develop a UAS product that you might be able to ring fence to particular airspace but I can't see how you could extend that to the mainstream ATC system. I've seen the horror across the industry at the thought of putting stuff on the cloud, mostly unfounded I'd add, so that would be way out of the comfort zone of both ANSPs & their airline customers.
I think NATS partners are relying on there being no innovators. NATS long ago gave up any ability other than choosing it's partners from a list with little choice.
I'm intrigued as to how this open source idea works. I can see how a third party might develop a UAS product that you might be able to ring fence to particular airspace but I can't see how you could extend that to the mainstream ATC system. I've seen the horror across the industry at the thought of putting stuff on the cloud, mostly unfounded I'd add, so that would be way out of the comfort zone of both ANSPs & their airline customers.
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And that insularity is why we're running sixty year old software and sticking our head in the technological sand. Suppliers will operate in their own interest, unless, they operate in the interests of the community - open source. NATS partners only want innovators if they can buy them, to stop them becoming a threat. A community operates in the community’s interest - look at the expertise here. All airspace will be integrated soon enough. NATS doesn't even know where or how this overlays its comfort zone...hence the patient needs the prescription, not pontificating about it.
Even if your revolution happens it won't change where we are now which is living with a thing that evolved without any real design.
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That insularity is airline industry wide. It's a part of the environment that eventually you have to succumb to and work despite of. Your revolution doesn't appear to have any actual way of dealing with that other than ranting. Many of us have been there before you, I will watch with interest.
Even if your revolution happens it won't change where we are now which is living with a thing that evolved without any real design.
Even if your revolution happens it won't change where we are now which is living with a thing that evolved without any real design.
Can anybody with industrial IT experience give us rough idea of the itemised costs of hardware, software, programming, development, testing etc ? And also the process that is followed in designing and commissioning a new system?
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So what are the real solutions and how do you get a very conservative industry, way beyond just NATS, to overcome its reluctance and adopt them
