Solution Provider and Consultant to the Air Traffic Management Domain

COMSOFT customers and industry experts meet under the motto, “Joint Visions, Joint Benefits”

KARLSRUHE/GERMANY, May 2012 – For the fifth year running, users of COMSOFT’s AMHS and AIM systems as well as guest speakers from across the world, met from 15-16th May in Karlsruhe to discuss their experience of using COMSOFT products and exchange views on how COMSOFT can continue to meet the needs of customers and discuss the challenges facing the industry.

Under the motto “Joint Visions, Joint Benefits” the presentations focused on the growing trend of looking at better ways of linking various forms of aeronautical information to improve access and use of available data. An area of particular interest was the transfer and exchange of new data formats, a topic that clearly demonstrated the advantages of AMHS over AFTN.

Mike Williamson one of this year’s guest speakers from NATS UK gave an update on the current status in moves towards System Wide Information Management (SWIM) and noted that AMHS would be a useful complement to SWIM: “AMHS with its support for larger messages and File Transfer Body Parts will be a significant enabler for the transition to SWIM by delivering XML data to SWIM enabled assets.”

COMSOFT was keen to demonstrate the feasibility of Williamson’s statement, an opportunity to show the advanced functionality of Digital NOTAM and its ability to transfer complex data structures in the AIXM 5.1 format via AMHS. The issue of different formats and cross-platform compatibility was also the topic of the presentation by Pedro Cruellas Satorres from EUROCONTROL, explaining the new Flight Object format and how it would be integrated into SWIM.

Many of the ANSPs (Air Navigation Service Providers) who are COMSOFT’s most important customers are endeavoring to meet the deadline to fulfill ICAO’s Flight Plan 2012 (FPL 2012) mandate by November this year, with the main issue being backward compatibility between present and new formats. As Aurelian Lourot, COMSOFT’s FPL 2012 coordinator explained: “Many affected organizations worldwide have not made specific plans to transfer all their systems by the target date. Even if many central systems were to be modified by the deadline it is likely that some subordinate systems won’t make the date due to lack of time or budget. Consequently there will be an extended period in which users and systems will have to cope with coexisting format types.” COMSOFT’s conversion solution AIDA-FPL offers a simple and cost-efficient fully-automated solution to bridge temporary compatibility problems.

As ANSPs come to rely increasingly on IP networks for the transfer and reception of aeronautical data, internet security was addressed with a presentation of COMSOFT’s comprehensive layered security system, employing firewalls and monitoring tools that could be tailored to the individual needs of ATC customers, providing maximum protection from the most determined hackers.

Manfred Schmid, Managing Director of COMSOFT, was satisfied with the success of the two-day event and the participation of representatives of many leading ANSPs demonstrated how valuable the event had become as a dialogue platform between COMSOFT and the ANSPs:

“Our overarching goal is to provide you – our customers- with the latest, high performance developments to help you master the challenges you are facing. We remain committed to a strong engagement with you and other stakeholders and look forward to our continued cooperation in the coming years.”

COMSOFT GmbH was established in 1979 and has been active in the ATC domain for over 20 years. The company enjoys a worldwide reputation in this market.

For further information, please visit our website at www.comsoft.aero or contact:
Malcolm McAdam    Phone: +49 721 9497 – 1086 COMSOFT GmbH   malcolm.mcadam@comsoft.aero