What is the added value of being a member of SESAR JU?

Being a member of SESAR JU places us at the heart of Europe’s air traffic management innovation ecosystem. It allows us to actively co-create future technologies and operational concepts, rather than simply implementing them later.

Through this collaboration, we strengthen our strategic influence, build key partnerships across the industry, and continuously develop our expertise. Ultimately, it ensures that HungaroControl remains a proactive contributor shaping the future of ATM.

Why is air traffic management and its digital transformation important to HungaroControl?

As an Air Navigation Service Provider, air traffic management is HungaroControl’s core business. Ensuring safe, efficient, and continuous operations is our primary responsibility. The operational environment nowadays is becoming increasingly complex with growing traffic demand and evolving geopolitical events that require even closer civil-military coordination. Digital transformation is therefore essential to enhance interoperability and resiliency, enable higher levels of automation, and ensure that we can manage this complexity safely and efficiently in the long term.

What are HungaroControl’s top three innovation priorities?

HungaroControl’s top three innovation priorities can be categorized as resilience, cybersecurity and interoperability. Together, they ensure that our operations remain secure, connected, and adaptable in an increasingly complex and dynamic environment.

Resilience and virtualization - strengthening robustness and adaptability

By strengthening resilience and advancing operational robustness, we further reduce tactical and strategic delays by ensuring that flights proceed as planned with maximum predictability, even under high traffic complexity conditions. Resilience, for us, means maintaining consistent, on-time performance without compromising safety or efficiency. This includes enhancing system availability and developing virtualized solutions that enable more flexible, scalable, and georedundant operations.

Cybersecurity - safeguarding critical ATM infrastructure

As a provider of critical infrastructure, ensuring the security of our systems and data is a top priority. Our safety-first operational culture extends to the protection of digital systems, supported by continuous innovations in cybersecurity, automated testing and upgraded procedures. This enables us to maintain exceptionally high levels of safety while protecting operations against evolving threats.

Interoperability - enabling seamless cooperation across Europe

We strive for increased interoperability to support a well functioning, efficient European sky. Our operational culture extends to all stakeholders: civil and military partners, airspace users, airports, and cross-border operations. By strengthening cooperation and aligning systems and procedures, we contribute to smoother, more predictable operations across the network.

We further develop our modern ATM and ATM-related systems by embracing automation, AI, and other advanced digital technologies. Our goal is to preserve world class excellence while propelling innovation forward – ensuring that HungaroControl’s technological expertise remains a benchmark for the industry.

In which flagships of the Digital European Sky programme is HungaroControl particularly interested, and why?

Based on our innovation priorities, several Digital European Sky flagships closely align with HungaroControl’s strategic direction.

We are particularly engaged in Connected and Automated Air Traffic Management and Artificial Intelligence for aviation, as these are key enablers for increasing efficiency, predictability, and automation in increasingly complex airspace environments.

Virtualisation and cybersecure data sharing is another important area, supporting more flexible and resilient operations while ensuring high standards of cybersecurity and system availability.

These priorities are reflected in our practical work, including our pioneering remote tower operations and our active participation in six SESAR 3 projects, where we contribute to – among others - the development and validation of next-generation ATM solutions at European level.

Why is SESAR important for Europe’s competitiveness, sustainability, and resilience/sovereignty?

SESAR is a cornerstone of Europe’s ability to remain globally competitive in aviation. By aligning stakeholders around common priorities and accelerating innovation, it reduces fragmentation and helps scale advanced solutions across Europe.

In a rapidly evolving global landscape, Europe must continue to reinforce its capacity to innovate, deploy digital solutions at scale, and maintain control over critical infrastructure. In this context, SESAR plays a key role by supporting the digital transformation of ATM, enhancing the resilience of essential systems, and reinforcing Europe’s technological autonomy in a highly specialized domain. At the same time, it enables more efficient and sustainable operations, contributing to the decarbonization of aviation.

This perspective is also consistent with the Draghi report, which underscores the need for stronger European coordination, investment in critical digital infrastructure, and reduced fragmentation to safeguard competitiveness and strategic autonomy for Europe - objectives that SESAR directly supports in the ATM domain.

HungaroControl’s participation in SESAR has enabled us to be consistently at the forefront of innovation. We have contributed to the development and implementation of advanced solutions-such as remote tower operations and digitalized ATM systems, which enhance operational efficiency while also serving as benchmarks at European level. We are proud to play an active role in this ecosystem - not only as a technology adopter, but as a recognised contributor shaping the future of European aviation.