IAVWOPSG/4-WP/19 International Civil Aviation Organization 16/6/08

WORKING PAPER

INTERNATIONAL AIRWAYS VOLCANO WATCH OPERATIONS GROUP (IAVWOPSG)

FOURTH MEETING

Paris, France, 15 to 19 September 2008

Agenda Item 5: Operation of the IAVWOPSG 5.1: Implementation of the IAVW, including the IAVW Management Report

ROUTING OF ADVISORY INFORMATION TO SELECTED FIRs

(Presented by France)

SUMMARY This paper addresses the problem of issuance of VAA towards selected FIRs.

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Annex 3 paragraph 3.5.1 states :

“A Contracting State, having accepted, by regional air navigation agreement, the responsibility for providing a VAAC within the framework of the international airways volcano watch, shall arrange for that centre to respond to a notification that a volcano has erupted, or is expected to erupt or volcanic ash is reported in its area of responsibility, by arranging for that centre to:

…

c) issue advisory information regarding the extent and forecast movement of the volcanic ash “cloud” to:

1) meteorological watch offices, area control centres and flight information centres serving flight information regions in its area of responsibility which may be affected;”

(3 pages) 030c2155531d6f09bbd228a322c16aa4.doc IAVWOPSG/4-WP/19 2

1.2 An interpretation of the paragraph 3.5.1 c)1) may be that VAAS have only to be sent to the recipients here described, and as a consequence, to have to adapt the routing of each VAA to the areas described in the VAA.

1.3 The efficiency of the volcanic watch needs prompt reactions, therefore any time- consuming process should be avoided.

2. DISCUSSION

2.1 The research of the FIRs affected by a VA cloud forecasted in the VAA may be a process consuming a large amount of time, particularly in major events with large VA clouds affecting many FIRs, if it is the result of a manual process.

2.2 Furthermore the risk of ‘missing’ a FIR during the process should be reduced to zero as such an error could lead to consequences for aviation safety. That implies the need to have right up-to- date information about the FIRs and their limits.

2.3 The only way to insure an efficient process without any delay and any risk of mistake is to implement an automatic tool. This tool must be able to create a list of FIR derived from the areas delimited by Lat/Lon points in the VAA. The automatic creation of a distribution list should then be made from the list of FIRs in order to send the VAA :

― onto AFTN, ― to other type of distribution (GTS, etc ..).

2.4 Once the tool has determined and collected which FIRs are to be affected by a VA cloud, it is necessary to associate the FIRs with the AFTN addresses that should be used (i.e. at least 2 addresses by FIR - ACC/FIC and MWO).

2.5 As a prerequisite, such a tool needs as entry data describing for each VAAC the official boundaries of all FIRs in its area of responsibility in a digital format (e.g. files). This area should be extended to the area of adjacent VAACs to deal with VA cloud crossing borders and should include the area of responsibility of VAAC for which a backup is provided.

2.6 To be reliable, this set of data should be regularly updated by an official procedure. To reduce the complexity to manage and to update such data, an unique file containing global data would appear as a sensible solution.

2.7 In most if not all cases, MET messages routing is static, i.e. each bulletin is sent onto AFTN by using some fixed groups of AFTN addresses and/or broadcasted by SADIS and ISCS on a global scale. Some difficulties exist with the great amount of addresses that could be used when major events occur with very wide affected areas generating a lot of addresses that may exceed the authorised numbers of lines in the AFTN message: a software should be implemented taking into account that possibility.

2.8 Static addresses allows using some collective addresses that will be maintained locally, as necessary. This increases the flexibility as each AFTN centre, where some AFTN collective addresses are expended into final or other collective addresses, may add as a necessity some other addresses following specific requirement by some States. The maintenance of the address is also transparent to the VAAC. 3 IAVWOPSG/4-WP/19

2.9 The back-up procedures are by far easier when a static addressing is used.

2.10 Some regional and I/R agreements should be obtained to get the AFTN addresses that should be used. The general documentation never describes the AFTN addresses that are operationally used (for security reasons?). Nevertheless, some special arrangements should be found to be informed of the addresses that should be used.

2.11 It might as well be valuable that the VAA be sent to the adjacent FIRs of a forecast VAA cloud : it is useful that ACC/FIC be informed of these events as they may have significant impact on the air navigation on all adjacent FIRs if air spaces have to be closed

3. CONCLUSION

3.1 There is an obvious concern with a VAA sent to all ACC/FIC and MWO within a VAAC area of responsibility, as each MWO and each ACC/FIC have to read and analyse every received VAA to determine whether its FIR is affected or not by the described VA cloud and take the appropriate actions.

3.2 The solution to adapt the distribution of VAA according to the extent of the VA cloud is technically possible. It requires the development of dedicated tools. Such a development has already been envisaged (by Toulouse VAAC, for example) but still remains subordinated to the provision of an updated official set of data describing the limits of FIRs on the globe and I/R arrangements to be informed about the AFTN addresses that should be used.

3.3 In this regard, the group may wish to formulate the following conclusion.

Conclusion 4/.. — Distribution of VAA to selected FIRs only

That the Secretariat be tasked to examine:

a) the feasibility for ICAO to provide VAACs with a set of data describing limits of FIRs in the world, as well as a procedure to keep these data up to date; and

b) how arrangement could be made to inform the VAAC about the operational AFTN addresses

4. ACTION BY THE IAVWOPSG

4.1 The IAVWOPSG is invited to:

c) note the information in this paper; and

d) decide on the draft conclusion proposed for the group’s consideration.

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