The ATN Conference is now in its eighth year. In the past seven years we have kept you up-to-date with what is happening in Aeronautical Communications. We started by focusing on the ICAO ATN, but this has long since expanded to include FANS-1/A and Airline Operational Communications. We are now widening the scope of the conference again. We are starting to introduce Airline Passenger Communications and will be looking at how new communications technology is being applied to deliver airline benefits.

Previous ATN conferences have dealt with the issues and opportunities surrounding the Aeronautical Telecommunication Network and its implementation. So, with FANS and now LINK firmly established on agendas around the world, ATN2006+ posed the question:

How will aviation comms deliver value to airlines?

The Workshop

A major new feature of this year's conference was the Workshop that replaced the traditional first day tutorial. This workshop included sessions on ATC, AOC and APC as well as an Open Forum. The objective was to identify the top five issues that users want addressing.

As input to this Workshop, Helios conducted a user survey and presented the results on a session by session basis. Each session started with a scene-setting presentation from an expert in the sector. The workshop was then delegate driven, discussing the results of the survey, and whatever delegates considered most relevant.

The Conference

The main conference continued the theme, provoking ideas on what should happen next.

Our first session, 'The Big Picture' aimed to show how communications fit in to the overall picture of improved ATS. There are big programmes in Europe and North America - SESAR and NGATS - but are they addressing the user requirements? This is what we investigated and questioned.

Regulation is always an issue - the European Implementing Rule for Data Link Services is now all but a done deal - but where to next?

We also brought the results of the workshop into the main conference and debated them, and heard of the benefits of SWIMware - that is, System Wide Information Management - for enabling the sharing of information to provide global airborne interoperability.