Airways-Lockheed deal done

By DITA DE BONI

The deal between Airways Corporation, this country's dominant air traffic control systems company, and the United States' Lockheed Martin Air Traffic Management is being celebrated despite a current probe into Airways by Minister of State Owned Enterprises Mark Burton.

This week in Parliament, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said a departed Airways executive had made allegations of insider trading against senior company officials, claiming they stood to reap millions of dollars for themselves through an upcoming, unspecified company contract.

Airways chief executive Craig Sinclair last night refused to answer a question put to him about whether the partnership with Lockheed was the "contract" referred to by Mr Peters.

The current contract involves considerable investments into New Zealand by Lockheed to replace current air traffic management systems and to further technological development in Asia-Pacific aviation circles.

The value of the contract to either party has not been disclosed.

The two companies were combining to win a major contract, worth "tens of millions" of dollars, for the replacement of the US Federal Aviation Administration's oceanic system, as well as tenders in both Africa and Europe, the visiting president of Lockheed Martin said last night from Christchurch.

Don Antonucci said Lockheed and Airways had a shared vision which recognised that land-based systems of air traffic control would eventually be replaced by "space-based" or satellite systems.

He said the scheduled 10-year partnership between the companies was "structured to be rewarding," with Airways' strengths in "air traffic airspace architecture and service delivery" complementing Lockheed's 40 years' experience in the design and development of air traffic management solutions.

There are several components to the deal. New Zealand's 10-year-old radar-based domestic air traffic management system will be replaced by Lockheed's SkyLine system - a single software solution that supports all major air traffic management functions.

The system will replace all radar and flight data processing computer and display equipment in Airways' Christchurch, Ohakea and Auckland control centres and 17 control towers.

"The initial phase to this agreement would be to bring in a new automation system which is usable for today's land-based [set-up] but having applications to satellite-based systems when appropriate in the future," Mr Antonucci said.

Lockheed Martin will also establish an Asia-Pacific technology development and testing base in Christchurch for aviation technology, and the two companies will jointly pursue specific international opportunities in Asia-Pacific rim radar replacement and airspace management.

The technology development centre is scheduled to be operational next March, and will be manned by four software engineers hired by Airways.

The two companies say there is plenty of scope for further bidding for "international opportunities in airspace management and equipment replacement."

"I saw Airways' New Zealand people as visionary, having a strong customer focus and a commercial based decision-making process," Mr Antonucci said.

Airways was established as a state-owned enterprise in 1987, and was the world's first fully commercialised air navigation services organisation. Lockheed Martin, based in Rockville, Maryland, is responsible for systems that daily control over 60 per cent of the world's air traffic from more than 220 air traffic control centres, mainly civil aviation authorities in Asia, the US and Britain.