When you're in a city and you see the cars and buses crawling along, horns beeping, you can't help but look up at the vast emptiness of the sky. Sure that's got its own traffic but when you see the steamy scar left by an aeroplane, it looks beautiful and there's nothing else as far as the eyes can see other than clouds. But that's not the truth. In reality, the sky is just as crowded as an inner-city road.
Each year European air traffic increases by 5% each year. Apparently "by 2030 as many aeroplanes will take off from Europe than there are inhabitants in Beijing." So, what's the problem? Busy airspace means chaos, and what separates chaos from happy-family-holidays is air traffic control, but like everything else these days, air traffic control is stuck in the past.
The solution? A joint initiative from the Aviation sector, European commission, SESAR, and Eurocontrol hopes to find the technology which can not only modernise air traffic control but will improve safety, lower environmental impact and reduce costs. Check out the snazzy video below for more information.