Many pains, much promise

What OneSKY aspires to do is nothing less than creating a common airspace management system for civil and defence airspace, where once civil controllers controlled civil airspace and defence controllers controlled their airspace plus some civil airspace.

There’s much riding on this.

“This is the future of this organisation, you know. Our ability to deliver and continually to meet our customers’ expectations and continually to grow the industry and cater for its growth means that we have to do something like this. So this is not optional. This is a must,” he told Australian Aviation.

Unsurprisingly for a project of this importance and complexity, the development and rollout of OneSKY hasn’t been smooth flying.

Most recently, Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne added the defence side of OneSKY, project AIR 5431 Phase 3, to the “projects of concern” list.

That was somewhat unusual in that no contract has actually been signed, although the project received second pass approval in December 2014 and defence company Thales was named successful supplier in February 2015.

“The contract will be signed by Airservices when the issues that brought the project onto the projects of concern list are resolved,” a Defence spokesman explained.

“Defence’s key concern regarding AIR 5431 Phase 3 is ensuring value for money.This is not the first time a project has been added to the projects of concern list before the project’s acquisition contract has been signed. LAND 40 Phase 2 was made a project of concern prior to contract signature.”

However a defence observer suggested Defence’s concerns go further than just value for money and a key issue to be resolved related to ensuring appropriate cyber security.

The consequences of a malign or even just mischievous actor gaining access to the national air traffic system hardly requires elaboration.

Joining AIR 5431 Phase 3 on the projects of Concern list was Project AIR 5431 for the RAAF’s new Deployable Defence Air Traffic Management and Control System, now running about two years late.

That was awarded to Indra Australia in 2014, to deliver a mix of mobile and transportable air traffic control radars and support equipment to allow defence to control and monitor air traffic on deployed operations.

There are now six projects on the Projects of Concern list, including three stalwarts, Collins submarine sustainment, air warfare destroyers and MRH-90 helicopters.

Since its inception under the former Labor government, projects have come and gone and this “shame file” has proven remarkably effective at concentrating the minds of both defence and industry to remediate problem procurements, or else.

The “or else” is project cancellation, as has occurred twice.

On the basis of that history, OneSKY will be successfully remediated. There’s really not much choice as AirServices Australia and Defence have big ambitions for this complex and ambitious project.

It will replace existing civil and military air traffic management systems with a common system which it says will be the most advanced integrated air traffic control system in the world and also the first with civil and military air traffic controllers operating on a common platform.

Harfield said this single airspace system would allow any controller work station to deal with any bit or airspace. That didn’t exist now so there was a significant element of development in OneSKY.

AirServices, the lead agency for this project, said this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to harmonise civil and military air traffic control as both their systems approach end of life.

The current civil system is called TAAATS (The Australian Advanced Air Traffic System), developed under a contract with local subsidiary of French firm Thomson-CSF, Thomson Radar Australia, in the 1990s and commissioned in 2000. Thomson is now Thales.

That was a very significant advance on the legacy system, involving a move to a digital platform incorporating the now almost universal ADS (automatic dependent surveillance) which records aircraft location according to data from the onboard transponder.

It successful amalgamated Australia’s six Flight Information Regions into two, controlled from two centres, in Brisbane and Melbourne.

TAAATS has been continuously upgraded, with more than 200 incremental improvements since it was first commissioned.

But TAAATS wasn’t achieved without substantial turmoil, with allegations of political interference in the tender process, claims of incompetence and a substantial cost blowout of more than 10 per cent over the initial contract price of $260 million.

In that sense, OneSKY hasn’t been really that different.

The Australian National Audit Office has already twice examined OneSKY, releasing reports in August 2016 and again in April 2017, the last at the request of the Senate Rural Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee.

But back to February 2015 when then Deputy PM and Transport Minister Warren Truss named Thales as the successful supplier for the $600 million project which aimed to be part operational in 2018 with full rollout in 2021. Full operational capability is expected in 2021-22.

Thales, with project partners Frequentis and Boeing Defence Australia, was basing OneSKY on its TopSky system, in use in 130 countries.

Although there’s been no formal contract signed, development work has proceeded under four separate supply of services contracts, relating to different aspects of the project.

All progress to date has been comprehensively scrutinised.

In its August report, ANAO said Airservices did not follow its own policies and procedures in contracting consultation services to an external organisation, the International Centre for Complex Project Management (ICCPM) and perceptions of potential conflict of interest.

Specifically, one senior Airservices official previously worked for ICCPM, of which his wife was chief executive. As well ICCPM chairman Chris Jenkins was also Thales managing director.

Airservices acknowledged it could do better to manage potential conflicts of interest but declared full confidence in the tender evaluation process for OneSKY.

In its subsequent audit of the project, ANAO warned we may end up paying too much for OneSKY, even though the tender evaluation process was capable of producing a value for money outcome.

It said it was not clearly evident the successful Thales tender offered value for money. Adjustments made to tendered prices when evaluating tenders against cost criterion were not conducted “in a robust and transparent manner.”

So how much is too much? Airservices five-year corporate plan, released in August said OneSKY and enabling projects would cost $652 million through to the end of 2021-22.

OneSky and enabling projects would cost $652 million through to the end of 2021-22.

Airservices board chairman, former defence chief Angus Houston told the Senate transport committee Defence’s share of the OneSKY was likely to exceed the previously agreed “not to exceed” price of $244 million.

Sir Angus said the contract was actually 99 per cent ready to go and all that was needed was to finalise arrangements with Defence once they’d been approved by the national Security Committee of cabinet.

Tim Rothwell, chair of the Airservices audit and risk committee said much of the delay in finalising the contract was because the board would not sign off on the deal until it was satisfied Airservices could be protected commercially.

In his interview with Australian Aviation Harfield acknowledged there was always going to be “some messiness” associated with a joint project involving one entity funded by the taxpayer and another funded through charges on airlines.

For all that, requirements for the new system, developed in the period 2010-12, had remained stable and issues around the project related to commercial arrangements rather than the technicalities.

He said they expected to end up with more than one tender. Had there been that competitive tension, this might all have been finalised sooner.

“If you actually had somebody that was competitive alongside, you would force all the parties to come together much quicker. So there was no doubt that the negotiations have gotten longer or have gone longer as a result of only down to one tenderer,” he said.

Still work has proceeded, with the new voice control system set to be rolled out from the end of 2018, to give some early benefit from combining the two sectors.

“It’s not like it’s not like nothing happens until we actually sign the contract. I’d be more worried if this was extending out and we actually haven’t started any work,” he said.

Former RAAF Air Vice-Marshal Chris Deeble, appointed OneSKY program executive in March 2016, said one of the biggest program risks was the rollout across four Airservices and 12 defence sites, all different.

“It’s going to be like giving a heart lung transplant to a marathon runner while he’s…. .. running a race,” he said.

“We have to maintain continuity of air traffic control services to the commercial airlines and civil aviation. Defence has got to do the same on their defence sites. So getting that rollout right across multiple sites, that’s where the real risk of this programme will play out.”

Deeble has substantial experience with complex troublesome procurement programs, managing both the Wedgetail and Joint Strike Fighter projects for the RAAF. He’s also a former director of ICCPM.

He said projects fell apart because they weren’t set up right in the first place, including unrealistic schedules and under-estimation of technical complexity.

So time used upfront on OneSKY to get this and the contract model right would make it successful, he said.

“Of all of the things that I’ve ever done historically, what we’re trying to do is get those things right. If you get the relationship, the strategy, and you’ve got a good plan that you know you can execute then you’re going to be in a far better place,” he said.

Deeble said the long period engaging with Thales on OneSKY had already paid dividends.

“What we’re seeing is a big injection of civil engineering project and program management experienced people coming out of Europe, out of the UK, out of France that are now being brought on the program,” he said.

“I think we’ve got a team that’s capable of doing what we need them to do. Inevitably there will be issues. It’s complex. But… . we need to be able to work together in this regard. I think Thales is the team that can deliver that.”

I think we’ve got a team that’s capable of doing what we need them to do. Chris Deeble

Harfield said Airservices didn’t expect the controller transition to OneSKY would be as significant as occurred with the move from the legacy system to TAAATS.

Pre-TAAATS, flight progress across the six regions was tracked on the basis of hand-written paper strips.

“That was going analog to digital. Now we’re sort of going Windows 95 to Windows 10. So we don’t envisage the load,” he said.

The transition from TAAATS to OneSKY will take place over two years, with the two systems running side by side.

Harfield says OneSKY will support the expanding aviation sector, better handling more flights and growing congestion with greater safety.

The benefit for the industry will come from cost savings from route optimisation, with savings from lower fuel use and also reduced greenhouse gas emissions, continuity and flexible access to airspace, including what was once exclusively for Defence use.

“Neither of us use our airspace 100 per cent of the time. But having them all together means that you can sit there and adapt to all of this, rather than having a big fight saying, I need all this airspace,” Harfield said.

That equally means Defence can gain better access to civil airspace which will be particularly useful with the new F-35 enters service and starts operating from RAAF bases at Williamtown and Amberley.

Airservices chief financial officer Paul Logan said Airservices had sought quantify the economic benefits of the move to a single airspace management system, including better understanding of how to optimise routes, looking out arund two decades.

“But in a present value sense, there’s about $1.1 billion worth of benefits that we think will get extracted out of the system,” he said.

For passengers, the benefits are in reduced delays.

Logan said their forecasts indicated OneSKY could be implemented without increasing prices.

“Some of that’s going to be subject to industry rates of growth over the next few years. But on the positive side, it’s reasonably neutral,” he said.

“The industry, of course, is going to say, well, it’s costing more and we prefer a price reduction upfront and then we’ll pay for it when it gets turned on.”

Logan said Airservices and industry were starting to debate those issues as the OneSKY implementation proceeded.

OneSKY could well be the last air traffic management system Australia will ever need.

Harfield said future improvements in functionality could be achieved through software upgrades, hence the considerable amount of work that had already gone into software assurance. That aimed to ensure it was not locked into a particular configuration, as was TAAATS.

“We’re expecting to evolve the software. It means that we can swap out, upgrade hardware modules and software over time that it’ll be the last time we go out and buy an air traffic control system. We just modify it,” he said.