In years to come, more and more people will chose air travel. Air traffic expansion and capacity crunch are the biggest challenges at many airports already today  and  IATA expects 7.2 billion passengers to travel in 2035, a near doubling of the 3.8 billion air travelers in 2016.  Do you want a quick overview of global air traffic growth? A tips is to watch IATA´s  video. 

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects 7.2 billion passengers to travel in 2035, a near doubling of the 3.8 billion air travelers in 2016. IATA base the prediction on a 3.7% annual Compound Average Growth Rate (CAGR) noted in the release of the latest update to the association’s 20-Year Air Passenger Forecast.

Austrocontrol has been the first customer of our ATC solutions and with Vienna we have a perfect playground right at our doorsteps. The airport is of reasonable size and complexity (two crossing runways, several traffic peak hours per day where ATCOs operate at the airports max. capacity), and the organization is proactive compared to the traditional conservative mindset in ATC. Introducing A-CDM at the airport raised the awareness that there are other stakeholders involved in air traffic as well, and with our new portfolio after the merger we are able to provide more intelligent solutions. All of our systems are installed in Vienna, and the controllers provide a lot of feedback about usability and improvement suggestions for our products.

Some notes about the visit:
The visit has been arranged with the Communications department from Vienna (Mr. Pohanka, Mr. Schmidt), and we (JL, a camera man and me) were granted access to the tower (accompanied by Christian Woborsky) for about two hours. We were very lucky, because it was a picture perfect day. No clouds in the sky, and perfect visibility. Timing was also very good, we happened to be on the tower right when the Emirates A380 landed. Of course we tried to stay in the background as good as possible, but the ATCOs in the tower cabin were so focused on their work that they more or less blended out our presence anyway.

Some notes about me:
Good infected with aviation when I was 12 (Top Gun). Did my PhD thesis on departure sequence optimization and started at ADB Safegate later in 2008 as a software developer. Appointed as product manager for OPTAMOS (DMAN) in 2011, together with project management for Austrocontrol and Saudi Arabia. Extended my product management duties in 2014 (Product Integration) and became Global Product Manager ATC Solutions for ADB Safegate in 2016.

ADB SAFEGATE is a leading provider of intelligent solutions that deliver superior airport performance and operations, and jointly identify and solve bottlenecks. Our consultative approach enables airports to improve efficiency, enhance safety and environmental sustainability, as well as reduce operational costs. Our portfolio includes solutions and services that harmonize airport performance, tackling every aspect of traffic handling and guidance, from approach, runway and taxiway lighting, to tower-based traffic control systems and intelligent gate and docking automation. ADB SAFEGATE has 900+ employees in more than 20 countries and serves some 2,000+ airports in more than 175 countries