The Division of Airports and Air Traffic Safety (hereinafter: the Division) is a part of the Department of Air Transport at the University of Belgrade – Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering (UB-FTTE). It has the history of 60 years of dealing with planning, design, operations and management in air transport and traffic system, both in academic work and as consultants.
The Department of Air Transport at the UB-FTTE has been established in 1960, and has since educated more than 900 graduates (five/four year programme), as well as seven classes (140 graduates) of the two-year (ATC) programme. The Department graduates are employed by airline, airport and ATM industry, CAAs, international organizations, consultancies and academia. Many graduates are working abroad, including organisations such as ICAO, EUROCONTROL, FAA, EASA, NATS, SkyGuide, Nav Canada, American Airlines, Ryanair, Airbus, Bombardier, Denver Airport, Aeroports de Paris, University of California, TU Delft, Jeppesen, SABRE, etc.
A long tradition is also established of final-year students’ internships at aviation system stakeholders Europe-wide. The hosting organisations include airport operators (Belgrade, Munich, Zurich, AENA: Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Barcelona, etc.), EUROCONTROL (CFMU/NMOC, DNM, CRDS, EEC Bretigny), airlines (JAT Airways, Austrian Airlines), etc.
UB-FTTE has the largest specialized library in the region. In 2007 the library has become the ICAO Depository library, the only one in the Southeast Europe.
The Division’s research efforts have focused on airport operations, airspace management, traffic flow management, traffic complexity, risk and safety analysis, and traffic economics. Research activities are performed through national (from Serbian Ministry of Science) and international research grants (from the European Commission, US Department of Transport, SESAR JU, etc.).
Consulting activities are performed through UB-FTTE’s Institute, which is licensed and registered for consulting activities. In the field of aviation, consulting activities of the Institute started in mid-1970s. Clients of the Division were: EUROCONTROL, EC DG TREN, AVINOR (Norwegian CAA), Munich Airport, Serbia and Montenegro Air Traffic Services Agency, Belgrade Airport, Government of Yugoslavia, Belgrade Land Development Public Agency, City of Belgrade Urban Institute, City of Nis Directorate for Development, etc.
The Division has become a centre of academic and professional activities in the region, including conferences, workshops, summer schools, seminars, etc. In the past 15 years the Division organized and hosted events covering different topics, such as:transport economics, volcanic ash crisis, automation in air transport system, safety assessment and risk analysis, safety culture and human factors, etc., with following partners: EC, NASA, GARS, HWR Berlin, NLR-ATSI and ETH-IfA Zurich. All events are supported by EUROCONTROL, with exception of one supported by Swiss National Science Foundation.
