THE Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) Africa Region hosted the Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) and Airport-Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) Symposium, in Durban this week.
The three-day event, which ended on Wednesday, was hosted in partnership with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) SOC Limited.
In his opening address, CANSO Global Vice Chair, CANSO Africa Region Chair and ATNS CEO, Thabani Mthiyane, reiterated CANSO Global’s stance in assisting its members in implementing the Airport-Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) concept and processes as well as supporting a commitment to improving the efficiency of global air transport.
“A-CDM offers substantial benefits to all partners by improving the quality of information on which decisions are made, leading to the enhancement of operational efficiency and facilitation of the optimum use of available capacity,” Mthiyane said.
The symposium aimed to identify and address CDM-related challenges faced by and opportunities available to the African aviation industry.
Among the key problems discussed were the likely delays on the airports surface operations, occurring as a result of apparent inefficient use of installed capacity and or lack of airport infrastructure in the event of the increasing travel services demand.
Another issue under the spotlight was the perceived lack of equity and access to Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Airport resources that might be attributable to the absence of coordination of common operational solutions and the seemingly inefficient use of aerodrome resources due to the apparent lack of common situational awareness and information sharing. This has the potential to affect predictability and decision making during regular or irregular operations.
“Decisions all levels must be made not in isolation but based on a shared, common view of the state of the ATM network with full awareness of the consequences of the decisions on every aspect of the operation,” Mthiyane said.
“Collaborative in this context does not necessarily imply people sitting together or working together remotely. A single person can also make a collaborative decision if the decision is based on the shared information provided by the partners and if it considers the impact of the decision on those partners and the ATM network.”