CAAP taps Aussie firm for control center upgrade

MANILA, Philippines - The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) has tapped Thales Australia and Pacific Hemisphere Development to undertake the P160-million upgrade of the existing area control center while the P13.2-billion next-generation satellite based air traffic management project is being completed.

CAAP director general William Hotchkiss lll and Thales Australia Limited Philippine branch manager Raymond Lions signed the contract last Friday for the upgrade of the ageing Eurocat air traffic management system.

Once upgraded, the computerized air traffic control and management solution would be able to control enroute, overflights, arriving, and departing air traffic from as far as 250 kilometers away.

The CAAP said the upgrade of the existing area control center is essential because the P13.2-billion next-generation satellite-based Communications, Navigation, Surveillance /Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) project would not be in place until the end of 2015.

 â€œThe absence of a ready substitute is a cause for worry for CAAP, because if the Eurocat bogs down, the operational load of air traffic will be affected and flights disruptions will have an effect on the Philippine airspace,” CAAP said in a statement. 

Last June, the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) signed an amended contract with the joint venture between Sumitomo Corp. of Japan and Thales Australia Ltd. for the (CNS/ATM) Systems Development Project Package – I.

Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya secured the joint venture’s reassurance that the CNS/ATM systems would be fully in place by November 2015.

The project was approved during the term of the previous administration but was never implemented. This after the Commission on Audit suspended in May 2011 the advance payment of P58.92 million for the new CNS/ATM Systems Development Project Package – I.

After a careful review, the COA early last month lifted the notice of disallowance issued on May 2011 against the advance payment by the DOTC of P58.92 million for the project.

The Philippines would be at par with the rest of the world by adopting the CNS/ATM technology program wherein aircraft transponders would receive satellite signals and using transponder transmissions to determine the precise locations of aircraft in the sky.

The CNS/ATM technologies include a computer based flight data processing system that will enable aircraft operators to meet their planned times of departure and arrival and adhere to their preferred flight profiles with minimum constraints and without compromising agreed levels of safety.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has agreed to give signatories such as the Philippines until 2016 to adopt the satellite-based CNS/ATM, although many countries around the world have been using it for the last few years.

The CNS/ATM systems development project was first conceptualized in accordance with the ICAO Global Air Navigation Plan and would replace aging vital communications, surveillance, and air traffic control equipment at selected airports nationwide.

The Philippines through the CAAP passed the audit conducted by ICAO of the United Nations in February last year resulting in the lifting of the remaining significant security concerns and paving for the partial lifting of a ban imposed by the European Union in April 2010 preventing airlines from entering European airspace.