Honeywell Aerospace gets slice of euro2B plan to update EU air traffic control for 21st century

Honeywell Aerospace to revamp Europe’s air control

LE BOURGET, France — Arizona-based Honeywell Aerospace will take part in a project to overhaul Europe’s air traffic control system to handle an expected doubling of the continent’s jet traffic over the next 15 years.

The head of its European division, Paolo Carmassi, told the Associated Press Wednesday that as the only U.S. company chosen to take part in Europe’s nearly euro2 billion reshaping of its air traffic management system, Honeywell Aerospace would provide newly developed software and other technology that will help increase the capacity of Europe’s skies by three times while improving safety by a factor of 10.

Honeywell Aerospace’s selection as one of the 15 industrial partners to work alongside the European Commission and the continent’s air traffic control body, Eurocontrol, was one of the most important deals announced by the Phoenix-based company during the Paris Air Show. All the other companies involved are European.

At around euro40 million, it is part of the overall $500 million in deals Honeywell has unveiled so far at the world’s largest air show.

The program, known as SESAR — Single European Sky Air Traffic Management undertaking — is Europe’s response to “the acknowledgment that over the next 10 to 15 years air traffic will double from say 10 million flights every year in Europe, to 20 million by 2030,” Carmassi said.

Honeywell Aerospace’s avionics, including communication, navigation and surveillance, are among the most widely used on the worlds’ fleet of Airbus, Boeing and other aircraft, and is one reason it was chosen by European authorities to take part in the program, Carmassi said.

The development phase of SESAR is scheduled to run until 2013, with the new system completely operational by 2020, Carmassi said.

Europe’s existing air traffic management system is based on radar and voice communications “from the 19th and 20th centuries,” Carmassi said. The new system that Honeywell Aerospace is helping build “goes from 20th century technology to the 21st century technology” based on satellite communications.

The Honeywell Aerospace technology is already being tested in pilot projects at airports in the United States, Australia and Germany, Carmassi said.