ATI ACHIEVED LPV OPERATIONAL APPROVAL FOR THE BELUGAS

After suffering from several years of delay, first on the EASA certification of the LPV modification (achieved on March 2015), and then on the operational approval application, Airbus Transport International, the transport division of Airbus in charge of shipping aircraft pieces from the different Airbus factories for assembly at Toulouse, received April 2016 the Operational Approval to fly LPVs from the French DGAC.

For ATI, getting and delivering the pieces at the right time in their network of sites is critical for meeting the delivery deadlines of the Airbus aircraft, thus increasing accessibility at these airports in bad weather was a long-searched target.

Laurent Vialard, Senior Avionics Engineer from ATI, qualifies this milestone as ‘really good news’. At Airbus, they are now looking forward to completing the suite of LPV charts at their common destinations. Nowadays, there are LPV charts published at Saint Nazaire, Hamburg, Bremen (LNAV/VNAV), Toulouse and Perpignan, and there are plans ongoing in Chester/Hawarden, Getafe and Seville.