Direction générale de l'aviation civile (DGAC)

Service technique de l'aviation civile

The Single European Sky regulations require that air navigation players (mainly ANSPs - air navigation service providers) comply with guidelines concerning :

  • The safety of ATM / ANS systems: a safety study must be carried out for any changes made to the ATM system, to demonstrate that the change can be implemented, maintaining an acceptable safety level (see EC Regulation 1035/2011, Appendix II paragraph 3.2) ;
  • The interoperability of these systems: declarations of conformity and verification must be produced to certify that the ATM / ANS systems comply with the interoperability requirements applicable to them (see EC Regulation EC 552/2008) ;
  • The security of these same systems: in the context of safety management systems, security aspects (including the security of information systems) must be taken into account (see in particular Regulation EC 1035/2011 Appendix I paragraph 4).

Furthermore, these same regulations require the authorities responsible for the oversight of ATM / ANS bodies to ensure that the latter effectively comply with these regulatory requirements.

The Air Navigation Division intervenes at the request of authorities, to assess on their behalf the safety studies, the documents produced regarding interoperability, and, where appropriate, the security studies, which are drawn up by the supervised bodies, for ATM / ANS technical systems and equipment.

This activity represents a significant part of the division’s function. The beneficiaries of this activity are mainly the DSAC, the FABEC authorities committee (FABEC NSA Committee), and the EASA.

Examples of projects :

  • Follow-up of safety studies concerning ARTAS (radar tracking), IRMA (radar tracking in approach/airfield control), ORTOLAN (local area network of the regional control centres), DIGIVOI (telephone and radio transport on IP), EGNOS (European geostationary navigation overlay service), etc. ;
  • Analysis of files summarizing the status of the ANSP conformity to the implementing rules for IFPL (initial flight plan) interoperability, VCS (air-ground voice communication channels), COTR (automatic flight plan data exchange systems), MSI (assignment and use of S Mode interrogator codes), etc. ;
  • Monitoring of security studies (ISS) on the transport of operational data in IP on the long-distance network.

Updated on November 25 2022