ENAIRE rolls out a new version of its ICARO XXI aeronautical information system

ENAIRE’s automation team has rolled out a new version of ICARO XXI, its inhouse system for automating aeronautical information, processing flight plans operating under visual flight rules, and supporting the Central Air Traffic Services Reporting Office. This new release represents a qualitative leap in capabilities and regulatory alignment, enabling more collaborative, efficient and digital air traffic management.

ICARO XXI integrates, within a single system, the operational information required to plan flights, submit and track flight plans, manage aeronautical information and notices to pilots, and provide pre-flight information bulletins, together with aeronautical and meteorological data.

In addition, it supplies information to SACTA (ENAIRE’s Air Traffic Control System) and maintains interfaces with airport systems, supporting, among other functionalities, those associated with A-CDM (Airport Collaborative Decision Making) systems, which allow airports to communicate in a precise and coordinated manner.

One of the main new features of this update is the automation of the handling of arrivals and departures through data exchange with SACTA. This optimises the workload of the personnel responsible for monitoring traffic operating under visual flight rules, namely air traffic controllers and operators at the Central Air Traffic Services Reporting Office.

This milestone consolidates ENAIRE as one of the air navigation service providers that will meet the requirements set out in the European regulation (Common Project 1 (CP1) Regulation) at an early stage. CP1 is the European Union’s regulatory initiative within the framework of the Single European Sky and the SESAR programme, which aim to implement, in a coordinated and mandatory manner, a set of technological and operational improvements in air traffic management across Europe.

Main improvements

The new version allows ENAIRE, the European Network Manager (EUROCONTROL) and airspace users to share more detailed and consistent flight trajectories, enabling better optimisation opportunities.

It also advances the distribution and quality of meteorological data published and used by operational systems. In addition, it has integrated, among the meteorological products, volcanic ash information provided by the London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre.

This system modernisation has also implemented improvements requested by general aviation users. These include access to data associated with the Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) directly through the ICARO app and website, a feature scheduled to be enabled shortly, together with improvements to departure and arrival notifications. The latter are already operational and allow these events to be reported without the need to contact the relevant unit by telephone.

These improvement objectives have been achieved thanks to the experience of ICARO XXI users, who, through their collaboration with the engineering team, have contributed to the development of this system update to improve their day-to-day operations. This version of ICARO XXI has received European co-financing channelled through CINEA (European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency) under the SESAR/CEF deployment programmes, making it possible to recover part of the investment made.