May 20, 2022 – After two years of COVID-19 pandemic and virtual meetings it was finally manageable to bring all Airport-CDM partners back around the table for a three-day-event at Düsseldorf Airport. From the 3rd to the 5th of May representatives of all German A-CDM airports and the German DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung - who in 2010 decided to join forces and start the German Airport CDM Harmonization Initiative ACDM@GER – came together to analyse last year’s figures and the upcoming developments and changes of the A-CDM process e.g. with regard to the EU Implementation Rule 2021/116 “Common Project 1 (CP1)”, supporting the implementation of the European Air Traffic Management Master Plan.
The group consisting of airport operators from Munich Airport, Fraport AG, Berlin Brandenburg Airport, Stuttgart Airport, Hamburg Airport, Leipzig/Halle Airport and Düsseldorf Airport as well as DFS members from the local Towers and Headquarters in Langen has tasked itself with harmonizing the German Airport CDM implementations as much as possible so airspace users are not confused by a multitude of rules across the country. ACDM@GER also represents its members with a single voice in international working groups.
Making aviation more predictable and efficient
Airport Collaborative Decision Making, in short A-CDM, is one of the main coordination processes that consolidates the way of operational cooperation by planning each and every step of a flight’s turnaround from landing until the next departure and exchanging lots of relevant data with all the stakeholders involved. In the future, it is foreseen to even extend this data exchange to a far greater timeframe trying to enhance throughput with the resources airports and airspace can offer on any given day. “The initial A-CDM scope that tries to coordinate all stakeholders’ activities during the last three hours before departure is now evolving towards several days before departure, which means we aren’t looking as much at individual flights anymore rather than all cross-company processes at the airports, ending in post-operational reports that help the partners to steadily improve”, says Erik Sinz of Deutsche Flugsicherung, A-CDM expert from the very start.
“Although overall traffic volumes in Germany are still hovering around 75% of 2019 levels, we are already facing challenging operational peaks during the day. These peaks are now even higher than in the pre-COVID era. People are currently longing for vacation, but operational staff is lacking everywhere. Short-term work, fluctuation and dismissals made the aviation sector shrink in terms of employees nearly in all parts and it is hard to find new personnel”, says Nico Ruwe of Stuttgart Airport currently leading ACDM@GER together with Erik Sinz as co-chairmen.
External aviation experts invited to join us on 3rd day
After two days of internal discussions, ACDM@GER invited several European aviation experts to join them on the last day of the event. Colleagues from Lufthansa, Eurowings, Condor, Tuifly, SAS, AHS Aviation Handling Services, WISAG, Acciona and the Network Manager’s Airport Unit from EUROCONTROL came to Düsseldorf Airport and also benefited from personal contacts, discussions, networking and exchanging different points of view e.g. on the upcoming implementation of the Airport Operations Plan (AOP) - Network Operations Plan (NOP) Integration which is compulsory for the stakeholders by the European Commission within CP1 until the end of 2027.
“I am really happy for this personal meeting and thankful for the opportunity given by our airport management”, says this year’s host Linda Gerritsen, Local A-CDM Manager at DUS. “We are all looking forward to May 2023, when we will meet again for the 16th ACDM@GER Harmonization Meeting in STR”, she adds.