Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport Modernized for Olympic Travel, Set to Enhance Air Traffic Flow

Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Indra upgrades Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport with a state-of-the-art air traffic control system, enhancing travel efficiency for Olympic visitors.

Indra has upgraded Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport with a cutting-edge air traffic control system to enhance travel efficiency, especially in preparation for the upcoming The Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The event is expected to draw approximately 15 million visitors, including two million from overseas, necessitating improved capacity and reliability at one of Europe’s busiest airports to ensure a smooth travel experience for all attendees.

Indra, a premier global engineering firm specializing in technology for aerospace, defense, and transportation, has secured a key contract from the Direction des Services de la Navigation Aérienne (DSNA), responsible for managing French airspace. The project involves upgrading the advanced surface movement guidance and control system (A-SMGCS) at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris to enhance operational reliability and reduce potential delays and cancellations.

Laurent Giger, who leads the CDG ATC Systems Department at DSNA, shared insights into the current capabilities and the benefits of the upgrade: “Currently, our system supports 73 incoming and 76 outgoing flights per hour. However, using the backup system limits us to 30 incoming flights, leading to possible cancellations. With the new system, we could handle 48 incoming flights even on the backup, reducing the likelihood of cancellations while potentially causing some delays.”

Charles de Gaulle Airport, one of the few airports globally capable of handling three simultaneous aircraft movements, ranks among the world’s busiest, with a passenger count of 67 million in 2023. The airport’s layout includes four parallel runways, four control towers, and 36 operational controller positions, emphasizing the need for DSNA’s air traffic controllers to maintain a detailed grasp of ground activities.

Indra’s InNOVA ground surveillance systems, utilized by numerous major international airports, are designed to aggregate and analyze data from various sources, including ground Surveillance Movement Radars (SMRs), MLAT, and other sensors. This leading-edge technology efficiently processes and refines data, filtering out irrelevant details to optimize the information presented to operators. This enhancement helps minimize distractions from spurious targets, boosting operational efficiency and situational awareness for controllers, thereby increasing safety at heavily trafficked airports. With the modernization, DSNA controllers will access the most advanced versions of this technology, featuring superior tracking and accurate object identification and classification.

Since 1997, DSNA has employed Indra’s ground surveillance system. This modernization is timely, as Paris gears up for the upcoming Olympic Games. The initial phase passed its site acceptance test in mid-March 2024. By the end of this project, DSNA will have a cutting-edge system prepared to integrate enhanced safety features mandated by the EU under Common Project 1.

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