September 2023 saw EUROCONTROL’s LARA – short for ‘Local And sub-Regional Airspace Management Support System’ – tool achieve two major milestones.
LARA – which integrates civil and military users into a joint platform that applies advanced flexible use of airspace (AFUA) principles to enable collaborative decision-making and provide live situational awareness to civil and military partners – was recognised this week at ATCA’s Airspace Integration Week with the Civil-military Cooperation Award for best practice in civil-military cooperation which was collected by François Cervo from EUROCONTROL’s Civil Military Cooperation Division (CMC).
And earlier in September, LARA achieved another significant achievement when Finland successfully integrated LARA into their tactical airspace management processes, connecting LARA directly to controller working positions. Thanks to LARA, controllers can activate and de-activate quickly airspaces to balance civil and military airspace needs, and react to last minute changes and short-notice requests in a way that keeps all airspace users instantly informed. This in turn unlocks more direct routes and enables CO emissions to be reduced.
This is ideal for the European aviation network, with an increasing number of EUROCONTROL Member States already actively using LARA, and additional users beyond Europe joining the user community each year. Thanks to LARA, users can benefit from real-time enhanced situational awareness that significantly enhances their ability to anticipate traffic and the predictability of flights, permitting seamless cross-border coordination and facilitating efficient cross-border operations.
EUROCONTROL CMC, which provides project management and support to LARA users, worked closely with Finland throughout their implementation project to refine and adapt LARA to their needs.