Montréal, Canada, 21-23 September 2015

The IFALPA Air Traffic Services Committee develops global harmonized policies and positions and promotes the adoption of these policies by ICAO.

The last meeting was held in September and Paul Vissers attended on behalf of BeCA. The meeting focused on the following issues:

• A joint meeting was held with IFATCA (worldwide Air Traffic Controller’s association) to discuss a number of common issues, such as space weather and the impact on ATC, RNAV visual approaches, etc.
• Several reports of the ICAO panels were discussed and guidance was given for future work. A new concept will be developed, the Visual Guided Approach. It will resolve the ambiguities that exist with the RNAV Visual approach. IFALPA produced a briefing leaflet outlining the problems with this kind of approaches.
• Volcanic Ash: a Volcanic Ash Contingency Plan was implemented for the European (EUR) and North Atlantic (NAT) regions. The development of a global template by ICAO still raises some difficulties particularly with regards to the level of concentration used in the charts.
• Drones (RPAS) were discussed with the ICAO representatives, who asked IFALPA and IFATCA to provide support for a harmonized approach.
• Reduced Lateral Separation Minima trial in the NAT region started on 12 November. IFALPA issued a briefing leaflet on this subject.

IFALPA, with observer status at the ICAO Air Navigation Commission and present at numerous panels and working groups, continues to work hard to get our pilot voice heard at this level. Our attendance here is both necessary and highly appreciated as we bring a wealth of operational experience to these forums.