The FCA project was represented at the 44th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC 2025), where two papers from our partners at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) were presented. Both contributions advanced the international discussion on Flight Centric Air Traffic Control.
Tobias Finck (DLR) presented “Flight Centric ATC – How Controller Productivity can be increased in En-Route Airspaces.” The paper addressed one of the central promises of the concept: enhancing controller productivity. By removing rigid sector boundaries and dynamically assigning controllers to aircraft, workload can be better balanced, enabling more efficient use of resources. The presentation provided insights from fast-time simulations of the ECAC airspace in flight-centric and sectored modes of operation, analysing the number of controllers required respectively, and providing a cost-benefit analysis for the implementation of the concept.
Mara Weber (DLR) delivered the paper “Flight Centric ATC – Reshaping the Supervisor Role.” Her contribution examined how Flight Centric ATC changes the function of the supervisor in air traffic management. In a sectorless environment, supervisors no longer oversee fixed geographical areas but coordinate distributed teams of controllers working dynamically across the airspace. The research is based on a workshop conducted in June 2024 with UkSATSE controllers and analyses the implications
of the FCA concept for supervisor tasks, operating procedures and tool support.
