SAS receives prestigious award for new air navigation system
SAS RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS AWARD FOR NEW AIR NAVIGATION SYSTEM SAS has received the prestigious Flight Aerospace Industry Award for its pioneering work to develop a new communications and navigation system promising to revolutionize the use of the airspace and increase safety. The award was presented by the British trade publication Flight International during a ceremony in Paris on Monday. SAS shares the award with the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration. The airspace for civil aviation in Europe is overloaded and the Air Traffic Management system fragmented and inefficient, causing heavy delays and an estimated cost to European airlines in the range of 1-2 billion ECUs annually. SAS alone calculates its costs to 450 million SEK a year, which is equivalent to having one and one half aircraft permanently grounded. Despite a boundless airspace, the aircraft have to follow busy "highways" in the sky in order to maintain a high level of safety. SAS participates in the development of a system which will make it possible to straighten out the air lanes and thus save time and fuel. It will also improve safety, because the pilots will be able to monitor other traffic within a large area with a high precision level and communicate effectively with ground control and other aircraft. The system is called ADS-B and was invented by a Swede, Håkan Lans. SAS has been testing the system since 1996 in two of its Fokker F28 aircraft. Also participating in the development work are the Swedish, Danish and German Civil Aviation Administrations and SAS's alliance partner Lufthansa German Airlines. SAS CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS For further information: Per Ahl, Fleet System Engineer, SAS, telephone +46-70-597.2852 ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by Waymaker http://www.waymaker.net The following files are available for download: http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2003/07/29/20030729BIT00050/wkr0001.DOC http://www.waymaker.net/bitonline/2003/07/29/20030729BIT00050/wkr0002.pdf