Current crises in the air traffic industry demonstrate that changes are required to present systems. The levels of delay and poor safety standards being experienced around the world dictate the need for improved Air Navigation Services (ANS). A multitude of reasons explain these problems. For instance, fragmentation of national systems prevents optimum use of the world's airspace. In addition, inherent limitations of present ANS technologies and procedures mean that it is usually not possible to separate numerous aircraft on random routings. Thus, aircraft must often plan their flights along routes and be channelled so that the necessary separation can be maintained. This results in fuel and time penalties, in addition to airspace capacity being consequently constrained. Accordingly, this paper provides an analysis of changes that should occur to ANS during this decade by evaluating current and planned technologies and procedures.
