Eurocontrol: 17,000 flights use centrally assigned SSR codes daily

On 30 September 2013 at 08:00 UTC, Finland successfully activated the Centralised Code Assignment & Management System (CCAMS). More than 50% of Europe’s air traffic now benefits from efficient SSR code management.

CCAMS has been activated in 12 states in just one and a half years: Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Sweden, Ukraine and United Kingdom.

Every day, more than 50% of flights in Europe use a CCAMS SSR code. On a busy day, this can amount to more than 17,000 flights.

Thanks to CCAMS, the number of SSR code changes in Europe has been reduced by about 25% since January 2012; this also applies to non-CCAMS States.

CCAMS ensures that SSR codes – used for regular IFR flights every day – are available for military exercises and crisis situations within minutes. CCAMS helped recently in supporting military exercises in Denmark and Sweden.

The management of scarce resources is one of the Network Manager’s functions, namely the Transponder Code Function which entered into force in February 2012.

The Network Manager coordinates CCAMS deployment with candidate Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) and manages:

  • its integration into the existing operational environment;
  • coordination with industry;
  • the development of individual transition plans (including a switchover plan, an activation roadmap, contingency procedures).

From an operational point of view, NM’s responsibility also includes:

  • aeronautical infrastructure data preparation and validation;
  • evaluation of changes to systems and procedures;
  • management and update of procedures, relevant operational documentation and incident occurrence investigation;
  • post ops analysis;
  • reporting to the Regulator.

Source / Author: Eurocontrol