Airservices Australia has introduced the new civil-military air traffic management (CMATS) voice communication system as part of the OneSKY project.

The CMATS voice communication system has been deployed at air traffic management (ATM) service facilities in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth in Australia.

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The switch over to the new system was backed by the Airservices and defence project team, operational staff and industry partners, Thales Australia and Frequentis.

In February, the Australian Department of Defence and Airservices Australia entered an agreement with Thales to implement the A$1.2bn ($942.67m) OneSKY air traffic management system.

Australia’s OneSKY programme has been designed to better handle forecast air traffic growth to help reduce congestion. It will manage all civilian and military air movements across 11% of the earth’s airspace.

“The system definition review has been finalised for the integration of Australia’s civil and military air traffic control systems.”

It will help open up additional air routes, as well as reduce flight times, fuel costs and carbon emissions.

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Furthermore, the system definition review has been finalised for the integration of Australia’s civil and military air traffic control systems.

Thales Australia CEO Chris Jenkins said: “We have brought together the best team and the best expertise in the world to deliver OneSKY, and this includes a substantial amount of new talent, creating the next generation of STEM careers and intellectual sovereign capability.

“Following a $12m refurbishment Thales also recently reopened our state of the art systems engineering facility to develop the highly secure digital systems at the heart of OneSKY and continuing to create the ATM systems of the future.

“This is a large, complex and nationally significant project that requires the highest levels of technical excellence. With the completion of the system definition review, we will move into the detailed design phase.”

The project supports 450 jobs with Thales in Melbourne and 200 in the Australian supply chain.

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