Building a more connected and digital air traffic management system - Airspace World SESAR Walking Tour reports
Europe’s air traffic management system is progressively moving towards a more digital, service-oriented ecosystem, where air traffic services can be delivered more flexibly across locations and organisational boundaries. Virtualisation technologies, system-wide information management (SWIM)services and advanced airspace management tools are central to this transformation and are also laying the foundations for the future implementation. These developments were explored during a dedicated SESAR Walking Tour at Airspace World 2026, guided by Ramon Raposo, SESAR Deployment Manager.
Enabling airspace on demand through virtual centres
One of the main objectives of virtualisation is to allow air traffic services to adapt more dynamically to changing traffic conditions and operational disruptions. At the ENAIRE stand, Javier Primo Soto presented the DEVICE project, which is developing virtualised platforms to support ATS delegation between air traffic service units .
The project is demonstrating the benefits of implementing an operating model based on the provision of disaggregated services from different data centres. Virtual centre platforms are currently being installed in the validation environments to be used by the participating partners ahead of the operational exercises planned for late 2026 and 2027. Demonstrations presented during the tour illustrated how virtualisation technologies can support resilient and more flexible use of airspace resources and enable airspace services to be delivered independently from data centres distributed across different locations.
Building on this evolution towards flexible service provision, Henock Baire presented the ISLAND project at the NATS stand, showcasing one of the most advanced SESAR virtual centre demonstrations to date. The project successfully validated cross-border airspace delegation between the Swanwick and Prestwick control centres through a series of real-time simulations. The exercises demonstrated how virtual centres can maintain operational continuity under contingency conditions without reducing capacity, while also improving flight efficiency and reducing fuel burn. The validations further confirmed that controller workload, situational awareness and safety performance remained comparable to current operations, supporting the feasibility of more flexible controller deployment and mutual contingency arrangements across borders.
Strengthening operational resilience across Europe
As virtual centre operations evolve from national implementations towards multi-state service provision, new operational and regulatory challenges also emerge. Addressing this dimension, Joaquim Geraldes and Martin Gillick presented the EXODUS project at the Thales stand.
The project focuses on business continuity through non-contiguous countries ATM service delegation using multi-state virtual centre architectures. The specific use case proved the ability to delegate Shannon air traffic services for Shannon traffic among COOPANS partners ensuring business continuity. At the same time, the DEVICE project led by Enaire partnered with EXODUS to transfer multi radar tracks from Spain to Portugal, as a surveillance tracker service, which could be viewed on the EXODUS screens by NAV Portugal controllers. This demonstrates the ability to have radar tracks available cross border in business continuity scenarios. The presentation highlighted key challenges linked to federated air navigation service provision, including national requirements, regulatory considerations and interoperability constraints. The project also explored how shared virtual centre solutions could strengthen operational resilience and support more coordinated ATM service delivery across Europe.
Connecting ATM through digital information services
Alongside the virtualisation of ATM services, digital information exchange through SWIM is becoming a critical enabler of the future ATM ecosystem. Returning to the ENAIRE stand, Javier Fenoll presented the INSIGNIA AIS SWIM project, which demonstrates how aeronautical information services are already being delivered through operational SWIM interfaces.
The project provides digital aeronautical information — including maps, geographical NOTAMs and aeronautical features — through SWIM-compliant services that can be directly integrated into operational systems. Accelerated through the ACADIA project, the upgraded INSIGNIA infrastructure now supports a wide range of applications, from pre-flight planning to post-flight analysis. A live demonstration showed how operational systems are already using these data services to access high-quality, real-time aeronautical information and improve situational awareness and decision-making. With more than 10,000 monthly users, the project illustrated how SWIM-enabled digital information exchange is already becoming an operational reality within Europe’s ATM network.
More about:
Read about capacity and demand planning in the European ATM Master Plan