Success for the third edition of the "Etats de l'Air"!

The 3rd edition of the Etats de l'Air, organized by the ENAC Alumni Association, brought together French air transport professionals on September 14 for debates that allowed everyone to better understand the new challenges of the air sector.

The first highlight of the day was the round table on the organization of future intermodality: far from the controversies of this summer, the air transport strategists, Anne Rigail, General Manager of Air France, Damien Cazé, General Manager of Civil Aviation, Edward Arkwright, Executive Director of the ADP Group, and Laurent Trevisani, Deputy General Manager of SNCF, clearly presented the issues, difficulties and prospects related to intermodality, which is becoming a key axis of complementarity between transport offers for the ecological transition.

The future of Air Traffic Control was then anticipated: Laurent Renou, Head of Air Transport Innovation at Eurocontrol, Frédéric Guignier, Director of Strategy at DSNA, Benjamin Binet, VP Strategy at Thales, and Patrick Loyer, Director of Aeroline Air Traffic Management at Sopra Steria, exchanged their views on innovations towards the future ATM system; free routes, amplified data exchanges, and artificial intelligence will be the new tools of Air Traffic Control.

These reflections were extended by Marc Hamy, VP Corporate Affairs Airbus, Patrick Cipriani, Director of the DSAC, Yannick Assouad, Executive VP Avionics of Thales, and Guy Tardieu, President of the OSAC, who debated the changes in regulations that are essential to accompany the ecological transition, emphasizing in particular the need to seek a global consensus and incentive logic rather than a regulatory radicalization that could create a real rupture between decisions taken on a smaller scale.

The last round table of the day focused on the issue of debt reduction in air transport: should government aid to air transport be the primary economic lever or should the entire ecosystem redouble its efforts to increase its efficiency? Marc Rochet, CEO of Air Caraïbes, Pierre-Hugues Schmit, Commercial and Operational Director of Vinci Airports, Yann Sonnallier, Managing Director of Aviation Finance at Société Générale, and Pascal Picano, Chief Marketing Officer of Carlyle, led a rich discussion, with a lot of energy and no double talk, to answer these questions.

More technical workshops also allowed the experts to share their knowledge and thoughts with the air transport professionals present:

Christian Daniau, President of the Charente Chamber of Agriculture and biofuel expert, Mouhamad Niakate, Project Manager for Bioeconomy For Change, Gauthier Blangez for Time to Fly, Pierre Albano, General Secretary, Government Relations Team, Air France KLM, and Nicolas Jeuland, Prospective Manager at Safran, enthralled their audience by discussing the challenges and difficulties involved in creating an FAS industry in Europe: Should SAF prices be indexed to traditional fuels, can biomass resources be better coordinated and mapped, and how can the necessary volumes be achieved?

Next, Gilles Laurent, DGA Flight Safety, Air France, Laurent Lafontan, Director of Flight Operations Development, Air France, and Yannick Vanhecke, Head of Safety Enhancement, Airbus, discussed the next challenges in piloting and safety of new aircraft: new technologies for safety, use of Big Data to better understand risks, redefinition of man-machine interfaces, in particular.

Finally, Olivier Mongenie, Airport Manager for SESAR, Arnauld Marrou, DSNA Program Director, and Geoffray Robert, SKEYES Chief Strategy Officer, gave a progress report on one of the most innovative and structuring concepts for air traffic control at small airports, the "Remote Tower".

The high level of expertise of all the speakers, the frankness and the simplicity of their words won over all the participants of this new edition of the Etats de l'Air, whether they were physically present at the DGAC headquarters or online.

Thank you to our sponsors: Arthur D. Little, OSAC / Apave, Avico, Akkodis, Thales, Sopra Steria, CMA CGM, Openairlines, CGX, Fly Instinct, RegioLease, Bioeconomy for Change, Time to Fly, APG France, DGAC and ENAC !


The replays remain available online:

Round table on the organization of future intermodality : https://youtu.be/AlmKM3irDSo

Round table on innovations towards the future ATM system: https://youtu.be/-jJ94McCyOk

Round table on the evolution of regulations to accompany the ecological transition: https://youtu.be/y_IWWIhswhU

Round table on the reduction of air transport debt: https://youtu.be/H9CejSLKIfs

Workshop on the creation of an SAF industry in Europe: https://youtu.be/haGWCwkhPio

Workshop on the piloting and safety of new aircraft: https://youtu.be/tldgddgjCLo

Workshop on the Remote Tower: https://youtu.be/rOANpfjjNKw

Arthur D.Little's presentation: https://www.alumni.enac.fr/global/gene/link.php?doc_id=691