CANSO & GATCA Launch a Global Blueprint for Change: “Orchestrating Transformation in Our Skies” at CFS 2026

Sep 16, 2026

Earlier this year, the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO) and the Global Air Traffic Controllers Alliance (GATCA) invited a high-level group - comprising union and global association presidents, as well as independent experts - to convene and draft a white paper. The aim was to provide guidance and best practices on orchestrating transformation in organizations, recognizing the complexity and changing contexts in which they operate and the importance of co-designing change with the workforce. The resulting paper - "Orchestrating Transformation in Our Skies - Co-designing Change through a People-Centred Framework" - was launched at Communicating For Safety 2026.

Firstfruits Services CEO Ben Stanley, Canadian Air Traffic Control Association President and GATCA President Nick von Schoenberg, NATCA President and GATCA Vice President Nick Daniels, Oliver Wyman Vector independent advisor and former FAA Executive Director Kim Pyle, and NATCA EVP Emeritus and IFATCA EVP Professional Trish Gilbert discussed a central theme of the paper: Transformation cannot be achieved by any single organization, profession, or part of the aviation ecosystem acting alone. Most importantly, it needs to be built with the workforce, not around it. It requires collaboration across traditional boundaries and shared responsibility for how change is designed, introduced, adopted and sustained.

As the white paper emphasizes, transformation is not complete when a capability is deployed. It is complete when it is safely adopted and delivers real operational value.

Read and download the white paper: https://canso.org/publication/white-paper-orchestrating-transformation-in-our-skies/.