Towards the Integration of Higher Airspace Operations in the European ATM Network

While very limited HAO are supported today by existing ATM processes, owing to innovation the number of operations is expected to grow substantially in the coming years. This will involve different geographical distributions and types of vehicles, ranging from slow moving HAPS to very high-speed vehicles. New entrants will provide new challenges in terms of flight-performance envelopes, operating at level bands not used today and where their operational behavior and performance may generate additional uncertainty in ATM. Therefore, the major challenge is to research new solutions needed for a safe, fair and effective integration of the new entrants in the new operational environment by providing validated flight trajectories, procedural packages for both nominal and contingency scenarios and real time monitoring capability. This paper presents principles, assumptions and concept elements for the integration of HAO in Europe, which have been developed during the SESAR project European Concept for Higher Airspace operations (ECHO)