Working Group 122 (WG-122) was established to support the development of Virtual Centres (VC) as envisioned in two key documents, the Airspace Architecture Study Report (2019) and the 2020 edition of the European Air Traffic Management (ATM) Master Plan, subtitled “Digitalising Europe’s Aviation Infrastructure”. One of the common themes in these strategic documents is the virtualisation, automation and digitalisation of ATM, with VCs identified as a key enabler for delivering the transformation. VC technologies and concepts are expected to strengthen the resilience and adaptability of the European ATM network through a more flexible use of capacity and increased cost efficiency.

Internationally agreed standards are needed to support the successful implementation of VCs. Reflecting this, the 2025 edition of the ATM Master Plan introduces two Strategic Deployment Objectives (SDO) that directly reinforce the VC concept: SDO #6 “Virtualisation of Operations”, which aims to make the de fragmentation of airspace more efficient and flexible, and SDO #8 “Service Oriented Delivery Model”, which supports virtual defragmentation through a service based architecture and a new model of ATM service provision.

WG-122 is tasked to develop standards and related deliverables to support the implementation of VCs. This activity is covered by the EUROCAE Technical Work Programme 2026, Section 4.2.8.