Under the operational control of the EATC, the air transport specialists from France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Lithuania and Italy share resources and procedures with the Air Force departments. At the end of an intense week of work, it concluded last Friday, November 22, at the 3rd Flight of Villafranca, the “
CATT –Combined Air Terminal Training“course in which participation was
Specialized personnel in air transport coming from departments of the Air Force and the air forces of
France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Lithuania which – together with the’
Italy – are part of
of the European Air Transport Command (EATC), or the multinational central command based in Eindhoven (Netherlands).
The CATT course aims to enable the qualified staff of Movement & Transportation (M&T) to operate jointly thanks to the
sharing knowledge of the means and equipment used by the various air forces, Through the application of standard procedures. In particular, the activity concerns operations related to the preparation of the cargo and the packaging of the so-called air-pallets for subsequent loading onto military transport aircraft under the control of the EATC. The latter in fact exercises operational control over most of the refuelling capacities in flight and military air transport of the participating countries.
After the planning and study activity conducted in the classroom, the involved specialists, 20 of whom were foreigners and 4 Italians, were asked to operate under the supervision of EATC instructors, putting into practice the
Safety & security concepts applied to Air Terminal Operations, with particular attention being paid to the transport of dangerous goods.
The European Air Transport Command applies the concept of “pooling & sharing” to the military air transport sector with the aim of
improve and optimize the management of available resources. Thanks to the use of a “common” fleet, which is larger than that of individual countries (20 different types of aircraft and about 200 aircraft), the EATC is able at all times to:
evaluate the aircraft that best suits the characteristics of the transport mission.
The arrangements, although operating within a multinational context under the operational control of the’
EATC, They remain, however, under the chain of command and control of each individual nation, which, in the event of particular national requirements, may assume control thereof through the revocation of the ToA (Transfer of Authority).
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