Red Hat to enhance EUROCONTROL air traffic management system

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In its role as Network Manager, EUROCONTROL coordinates and optimises the flow of air traffic across Europe, managing eleven million flights in 2025. With traffic expected to reach 12.4 million annual flights by 2031, the organisation is replacing its 25-year-old IT backbone with a modern architecture that provides the transparency and control required for mission-critical infrastructure.

Central to this transformation, EUROCONTROL worked with Red Hat to establish a unified platform that integrates flight and flow domains through a common management system and a single API architecture. Red Hat OpenShift serves as one of the key foundational technologies for this environment, allowing EUROCONTROL to retire legacy constraints in favour of cloud-native agility. Supported by Atos for systems integration, EUROCONTROL chose Red Hat to drive faster innovation while meeting the rigorous operational and regulatory requirements of European digital sovereignty.

Unlocking sovereign AI and real-time insights
The platform bolsters resilience by enabling EUROCONTROL to more easily scale operations from on-premises data centres into regional sovereign clouds based on real-time air traffic fluctuations. This open hybrid cloud approach provides:

• Strategic autonomy and transparency: As a public organisation, EUROCONTROL requires the technological freedom to choose its cloud providers. With Red Hat’s enterprise open source solutions, EUROCONTROL can maintain control and establish clear, auditable trails over its infrastructure and remain digitally sovereign while maintaining full code transparency.
• Mission-critical application refactoring: EUROCONTROL is currently refactoring and reworking applications for this new ecosystem. Initial focus is on a core set of enhanced European Aeronautical Information Service Database functionalities, including its Aeronautical Data Management system and the daily management of both conventional and digital Notice to Air Mission (NOTAM) modules. Future migration plans centre on the integrated Flight and Flow Management System and a modernised, unified NM User Interface.
• A unified B2B ecosystem: Supported by a range of technology partners, the new platform enables EUROCONTROL’s business-to-business interface to simultaneously serve its entire network of internal and external stakeholders. Red Hat OpenShift serves as the unified platform spanning the hybrid cloud to support this massive scale of collaboration and data sharing.
• Scalable AI for sustainability: The high-performance environment provides the capacity to apply machine learning and AI to complex trajectory calculations. While legacy systems required up to three days to process data for post-operational analysis, the Red Hat-based platform makes the data available in real time, helping airspace users identify the most fuel-efficient and environmentally sustainable routes immediately.
• Development velocity: By automating many manual infrastructure tasks, Red Hat OpenShift helps EUROCONTROL to speed up software development and release updates, freeing employees to focus on high-value application development rather than maintenance.

Leonard Bodmer, vice president, Western Europe, Red Hat, said: “Red Hat’s collaboration with EUROCONTROL showcases the power of open hybrid cloud in transforming critical infrastructure while retaining full control over the resulting stack. By embracing Red Hat OpenShift, EUROCONTROL is gaining the flexibility it needs to adapt its organisation and maintain digital sovereignty according to rapidly evolving European aviation dynamics.”

Antonio Licu, Head of Technology Division, EUROCONTROL said: “EUROCONTROL is modernising its operational systems that ensure flight and flow management across the European air traffic network while maintaining business continuity at the same time. Taking advantage of the cloud for our mission-critical systems will improve the ability of the network to safely and efficiently scale capacity up or down depending on growth or decline of air traffic. This transition supports a more open and collaborative working culture while placing our digital products securely in the cloud. We will continue to evolve our technology landscape in line with these principles together with all our technology partners including Red Hat.”