INTERVIEW
“Collaboration is massively
important to the future of the
industry. Great things are rarely
achieved by individuals –
memorable things are often
achieved by working with others”
AIR TRAFFIC TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL 2020 7.
The number of ANSPs in the world has
not dramatically increased since CANSO
was created in 1996, yet its membership has
steadily increased over that time. Hocquard
believes the association’s importance has
increased as the amount of global air traffic
has grown: “As traffic has grown it puts
pressure on ANSPs all over the world to
improve and CANSO is the right place to go
to learn how to improve.”
The association has also been broadening
its range of potential members. Suppliers and
other stakeholders can now become associate
members of CANSO. At this year’s AGM a
new category of membership was also
devised so that the unmanned traffic
management (UTM) service providers and
other specialised air traffic service providers,
companies developing technology to manage
autonomous drones, can join.
The moves are indicative of the inclusivity
that Hocquard firmly believes the sector
needs to embrace to ensure it overcomes its
future challenges. These challenges are
familiar to those involved in the sector –
improving safety and increasing airspace
capacity. “Of all the needs of ATM, safety is
always the number one priority,” he says.
“The quest to improve safety has led to us
working more collegiality globally. Now we
must work collegiality to deal with growth in
the air traffic sector.”
Safety and improvements
Hocquard believes strongly that safety in all
areas, airspace, runway and organisational
culture, needs to improve alongside growth
in air traffic and changes in technology and
operations. Organisational culture has a role
to play here – people must be comfortable
reporting safety issues so that the rest of the
industry can improve. CANSO also runs a