François Gayet is secretary-general of the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD). He welcomes the European Commission’s desire to speed up implementation of the Single European Sky and, in so doing, its technological component SESAR, the future European air traffic management system.

In his report on the consequences of the volcanic eruption, Siim Kallas promises a communication, by the end of 2010, on the deployment phase of SESAR. What do you expect from the Commission?

That it can propose a mode of financing and contribute to the definition of a business model, which will make it possible to achieve the necessary investment amortisation. Estimates show that the deployment of the entire system could cost as much as €30 billion. This does not necessarily need to be an investment by the Commission. It could even be a public-private partnership or it could involve the intervention of the European Investment Bank. We must find a formula – and, for the time being, we do not have one – for how this could be set up. We will undoubtedly find forms of partnerships, such as for the programme development phase. Airlines already contribute to the financing of air traffic control operations via payments to service providers. But in future, a large proportion of the necessary resources for air traffic control will be on board aircraft and it will be essential to equip them, including those that are flying today. We can draw a parallel with Galileo: services will finance part of the programme, but the basic infrastructure is to be financed by the Commission.

The United States is developing a parallel system, NextGen. How is the situation with the US?

We are clearly in what is known as ‘coopetition’ mode: cooperation/competition. Cooperation, because we need to develop global standards. It would be difficult to imagine an aircraft being equipped with different units when flying to the US and when flying in Europe and being forced to change from one system to another when crossing the Atlantic. From the moment we have on-board equipment with automated data transmission, we need standards. Here, we must work together with the Americans. Afterwards, there will be global competition because the party with the most competitive system will be the one with the most chance of imposing it in other parts of the world.

The most competitive system is not necessarily the one that is available most quickly...

Of course. There is both performance and deadline. This is a real challenge in terms of competitiveness for the European industry. And it is important to know that the development of NextGen is entirely subsidised by the US government, contrary to the SESAR development phase – €2.1 billion – one third of which is financed by the Commission, one third by Eurocontrol and one third by industry. In the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration obtained a significant budget for NextGen. I think that the fact that they witnessed the start-up of SESAR led them to speed up the approval of budgets in order to launch the system more quickly. We are therefore in a race against time. My message is this: SESAR is a major investment for Europe, which concerns all citizens. It is certainly a flagship programme for the coming ten years. Europe must invest heavily in it, so that it may serve as a reference on a global level. The logic is clearly the same as for Galileo. On 4 May, we expect ministers to say ‘yes’ to accelerating the single sky and the preparation of the deployment of SESAR. If there is a decision to be made, it is certainly this one. I think that the volcano episode helped to increase awareness.

Speaking of the volcano: can we envisage focusing research on the development of engines that are resistant to ash?

What we would like is to give the public authorities the means of taking decisions in knowledge of the cause. This does not necessarily mean making significant development on engines, but being capable of effectively measuring the risks of approaching an ash cloud. Alaska Airlines, which is used to flying in areas of volcanic activity, could explain that they have flight regulations, which allow them to circumvent this and fly anyway, without going through the cloud. In Europe, this phenomenon is exceptional and therefore nobody wanted to take a risk, which seems perfectly normal to me. But we must now provide politicians with the instruments to take the necessary decisions. This is perhaps easier than undertaking research on phenomena which are, however, very rare. The fact is that today, the problem of the ash cloud is not considered to be a factor that requires tests to be carried out and the situation to be standardised. Standardisation would be a big job and we would need to be certain that we are not going too far in terms of demands compared with the occurrence of the phenomenon.