NAV CANADA unveils new strategic direction

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Raymond Bohn, President and CEO, NAV CANADA

Torn from the pages of a science fiction novel. That’s how some might describe NAV CANADA’s long and short-term predictions for the future of Canada’s airspace. Flying carsOpen a new window, drone deliveriesOpen a new window, and a surge in passenger and freight air trafficOpen a new window are expected to take to our skies in increasing numbers in the coming years.

While factors like the COVID-19 pandemic and fluctuations in global financial markets make it difficult to know how quickly these innovations and rising demands will impact our Company, as proven since the first human flight, the only thing constant in our industry is change.

The question of why change is needed may be self evident; how we’re going to let go of the past and embrace the future is more complex. For this reason, NAV CANADA employees at all levels of the organization have been involved with reimagining what the future of Canada’s air navigation system should look like.

Driven by data, commitments, and projections made by our customers, partners, and other stakeholders, NAV CANADA has developed a strategy to guide our next steps. With safety remaining at the forefront of everything we do, our new Strategic Direction will leverage technology that is available to us now, increase the value of our services for customers, and enable aircraft to decrease their impact on the environment.

Three interconnected initiatives will transform Canada’s air navigation system and coalesce around our shared purpose to keep Canada’s skies safe. The initiatives include trajectory-based operations, airspace modernization, and digital facilities.

Trajectory-based operations

Flight plans are often filed with NAV CANADA minutes before aircraft take to our skies. Due to the inherently tactical nature of NAV CANADA’s operations, our air traffic controllers frequently need to direct pilots to make a variety of interventions. This can include several altitude changes, speed instructions and heading alterations. Interventions are generally based on the conditions and traffic within the specific area of airspace an aircraft is situated in, but can have unintended impacts further down the trip.

Due to this current approach, our Company is not able to offer a continuous gate-to-gate trajectory for flights that traverse our airspace. This leads to situations where aircraft may be sped up in one sector, only to be placed in a holding pattern as it approaches its destination due to congestion at the airport.

The concept of trajectory-based operations (TBO) involves leveraging advances in technology to approach air traffic management from a more strategic perspective. It allows an aircraft to fly to its destination based on a pre-determined four-dimensional flight path viewed in its entirety. The trajectory takes all four dimensions into account, meaning the time the aircraft will be at any point in space along its route is predetermined.

In addition to providing aircraft with greater flexibility and preferred flight routes, TBO allows aircraft to file their optimised trajectory, reduce their flight time, minimize enroute delays, use less fuel, and paves the way for the integration of new entrants, such as remotely piloted aircraft systems or drones.

Airspace Modernization

Canada’s current airspace is generally built around ground-based NAVAIDs and surveillance technology that was conceived over 50 years ago. Airspace boundaries tend to be geopolitical in nature and have led to a highly segmented system that can require several handoffs and a multitude of frequency changes during a single flight.

With the arrival of space-based automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) technology, air navigation service providers, such as NAV CANADA, can re-imagine their airspace to meet the current and future needs of their customers. Our Company’s Airspace Modernization initiative takes a national and holistic view of Canada’s airspace in order to provide aircraft with better access to their preferred routes, a seamless interaction with our air traffic services, and sets the stage for trajectory-based operations, along with many other benefits.

Digital facilities

Moving beyond traditional human line-of-sight, digital facilities provide the opportunity to rethink how and where our services are delivered from. The concept of digital facilities takes the provision of air traffic services at an airport to new heights by leveraging advanced technology that avoids the limitations of traditional on-site personnel visual capabilities.

Digital facilities use high resolution camera technology to capture what is happening on the field and display an augmented video feed on an integrated set of screens. These screens — along with the other communication and surveillance technology you'd expect at a control tower or flight service station — can be in a local or remote facility, from which air traffic services personnel provide service.

In the future, digital facilities can provide the opportunity for a hub approach, wherein multiple airports receive service from a single centralized facility. This technology lays the foundation for enhanced service and safety, including better vision in low visibility conditions, the elimination of blind spots due to physical structures, the ability to predict conflicts and determine if an aircraft is off the runway, more efficient and resilient operations, and a responsive deployment of services to meet changes in demand.

The next chapter of our story

These three interconnected initiatives, which are supported by a number of Strategic Priorities, will guide us into the future, transform how we deliver service over the long-term, and provide exceptional value for our customers. As this next chapter in our Company’s story unfolds, we remain committed to driving continuous improvement to our safety record, which is already amongst the best in the world.

We begin this journey with confidence in the capabilities of our employees, trust in our industry’s recovery, and resolve to shape the future of air navigation services. With more than a quarter century of experience propelling us forward, we are in control of our own future and, together, are ready to take our industry to new heights.

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NAV CANADA unveils new strategic direction​

The next chapter of our story

NAV CANADA unveils new strategic direction