# Enrico Spinielli (@espinielli.bsky.social)

Profile: https://sifa.id/p/espinielli.bsky.social
Headline: Data Manager at EUROCONTROL
Location: Brussels Metropolitan Area

## About

As Data Manager I want to exploit the incredible amount of civil aviation traffic data available in EUROCONTROL. I like to see myself as a bridge between those looking after meaning in the data (statistically and visually) and the infrastructure/processes that would help them to use mainstream and latest techniques and technologies.

I prefer doing things, and fail (hopefully fast) at them, rather than sitting around talking about doing things.

I really like working with people from all over the world and from diverse backgrounds: it brings so great variety of perspectives and point of views! (And some hilarious misunderstandings!)  Many years ago, I used to develop Graphical User Interfaces in Oracle Forms, then C++ and finally in Java. I have been working on server side too for a GSM/UMTS network management cell and the AIS management system (Environment) for Eurocontrol/Network Manager. Nowadays at work (and to manage my professional activities) I mainly use R/RStudio, Python and Javascript in a (possibly faked) Unix environment.

My personal projects are done in R, Javascript, Smalltalk, Python, a little bit of Lisp and some are Android apps.

For fun I use javascript for data visualization via the fantastic d3.js (https://bl.ocks.org/espinielli).

Ah and I got 3 checks from Donald Knuth for having found errors in his books (The Art of Computer Programming): 2 paper ones and a digital one (in the Bank of Sans Seriffe, http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/boss.html).

## Experience

- **Development Team Leader for CHMI-CUA team at Eurocontrol** (2006 – 2008)
  I am managing a team of ~15 people developing both fat and web user interfaces which access CFMU services. We are in charge of the middleware, CUA, which both validates access credentials and mediate the services from the backend systems.
- **junior researcher at ARTS Lab, Scuola Superiore di Studi e di Perfezionamento S. Anna** (1994 – 1995)
  I participated in research activities related to ultrasound sensors and robotics.
- **ENV system Team Leader at Eurocontrol** (2005 – 2006)
  I was leading the development team (7 software engineers and business analysts) of the ENVironment system from CFMU. The system provides up-to-date and validated Aereonautical data to other mission critical CFMU systems (for flight plan processing and flow and capacity management).
- **Software Developer at Sodalia** (1995 – 1998)
  Development of software for telecom switches management and configuration.
- **Software Developer and Architect at Marconi Mobile** (2000 – 2002)
  I have been involved in starting up the (at the time) new group to implement an OMC (network management system) for the GSM/UMTS mobile network to be produced: I have been selecting people, defining hardware and software infrastructure for OMC, performing duties as unix (Sun Microsystems' Solaris) system administrator. We grew from 2-3 when I joined to a 15 people team. After a while when things settled I concentrated on leading GUI team for the OMC and contributing to the architecture.
- **Data Manager at EUROCONTROL** (2015 – present)
  I joined the Performance Review Unit (now Aviation Intelligence Unit) in order to improve the data management processes, workflows and products via aggressive automation, version control and use of (sometimes open, cheaper) cloud technologies (GitHub, TravisCI, Google Spreadsheets/Documents,...) Open/Free-source software makes also a big set of our toolset: Git, R, Python, GNU unix tools.
  
  I am promoting open and reproducible performance review following the ideas of reproducible research (see my 2 most recent publications). I am involved in the definition/production of open Reference Trajectories via the use of crowdsourced  ADS-B position reports. I have been cooperating with OpenSky Network and using the ADS-B/Mode S collected data in order to research improvements in ATM and airport operations.
- **Back-End Architecture Team Leader at Eurocontrol** (2012 – 2015)
  I managed a team of seven architects, business analysts and project managers within the Techinical Organizer unit. We looked after requests from internal (Network Management Operational Room) and external users (AO [Aircraft Operator], ATC [Air Traffic Control centres], ... from ECAC area and beyond). We tried to best evolve, change the architecture and the design of our mission critical systems (and keep them as simple and maintainable as possible!) to fulfill the business needs.
  
  I participated/contributed to the scope definition of future Network Manager's release, i.e. change requests effort  for functional and technical blocks.
  
  I was also Requirements and Architecture Process (RAP) owner whereby I looked after refining/defining the process and working practices that we followed to elaborate service/systems requirements for the development of the Network Manager systems.
  
  With both my hats on, I organized 4 sessions of "Mastering the Requirements Process" with Suzanne Robertson (http://www.volere.co.uk/masteringrequirementsprocess.htm). This course, for TO and for other NM Units, aimed at providing a sound methodology for requirement elicitation and at enlarging the awareness of the process and needs among all the people involved (but often not actively participating).
- **Development Team Leader NeOS Team at Eurocontrol** (2010 – 2012)
  I manage a team of 22 software engineers. We developed, maintained and supported the two mission critical families of systems in the CFMU: IFPS and  ETFMS.
  
  IFPS is a family of systems that support the provision, processing and distribution of Flight Plans in the pre-flight phase (i.e. the period preceding the first delivery of air traffic control clearance, for flights departing from within the IFPS Zone, or in the period preceding entry into the IFPS Zone for other flights.)  IFPS ensures the consistency of Flight Plan data between Aircraft Operators (AOs), Air Traffic Flow and Capacity Management (ATFCM) and the Air Traffic Services Units (ATSUs).
  
  ETFMS has two main functions for use in the ATFCM 'Tactical' operations (day of flight) but also for a large part of the 'Pre-tactical' operations (1-6 days prior airborne):
  \1. the calculation of the traffic demand in every sector of concern within the CFMU area, using the flight plan information received from the Aircraft Operators (AOs) via IFPS and real-time update messages (i.e. radar derived data provided by the Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), position report data provided by the aircraft operators and, meteorological data.) In cases where the computed traffic demand exceeds the ATC sector capacity, the Flow Management Controllers within the CFMU and their Flow Management Position (FMP) colleagues in the various ACCs decide whether or not to implement a 'regulation', delaying flights through the allocation of a departure slot and effectively moving the excess traffic out of the overload period.
  \2. the complex slot list calculation, allocation and distribution to the involved parties (ATC, AOs etc). This part of the system is called CASA (Computer Assisted Slot Allocation).
  
  IFPS: Initial Flight Processing System ETFMS Enhanced Tactical Flow Management System CFMU: Central Flow Management Unit, an operational unit of Eurocontrol. Eurocontrol: European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation
- **Development Team Leader for CHMI team at Eurocontrol** (2008 – 2010)
  I managed a team of 7 software engineers developing graphical user interfaces (GUIs) which remotely access CFMU services. We developed, maintained and supported GUI in use at Eurocontrol/CFMU Operational Rooms and used by both Aircraft Operators and Air Traffic Control Centre in every Air Traffic Control Centre throughout Europe. I worked as project manager for some Feature Blocks we delivered as part of CFMU releases, i.e. CIAM (about Flexible Use of Airspace, hence collaboration between civil and military).
- **Technical Manager ENV system Team at Eurocontrol** (2003 – 2005)
  My role in the ENV team was to provide technical/architectural support to the team leader. I contributed to small pieces of development of ENV functionality and contributed to the elicitation and definition of new features.
- **Senior Software Developer at Lucent Technologies** (1998 – 2000)
  Software development for OMC (network management system) and feature estimation and planning.

## Education

- **Udacity** — Intruduction to Statistics (ST101) (2012 – 2012)
- **Stanford University** — Advanced Track of web-based Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (2011 – 2011)
- **Project Management Institute** — PMP reg. num. 1416212 (2011 – 2018)
- **Udacity** — Computer Science 373: Programming a Robotic Car
- **Università di Pisa** — M.Sc. (1987 – 1994)
- **Liceo Scientifico Statale G. Fracastoro** — Diplome di Maturità Scientifica (1982 – 1987)

## Skills

- Computer Science
- Unified Modeling Language (UML)
- Java
- Smalltalk
- Unix
- Solaris
- Requirements Analysis
- Data Visualization
- Data Science
- SQL
- R (Programming Language)
- D3.js
- Javascript
- C
- XML
- Software Development
- Shell Scripting
- Air Traffic Control
- Software Engineering
- Python
- R
- Software Project Management
- C++
- Linux
- Android Development
- UML
- Data Analysis
- Object Oriented Design

## Certifications

- Computing for Data Analysis — Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/course/compdata)
- Maps and the Geospatial Revolution — Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/course/maps)

## Publications

- Aircraft Fuel Burn Estimation: The EUROCONTROL PRC 2025 Data Challenge — Journal of Open Aviation Science (https://doi.org/10.59490/joas.2026.8750)
- Preparing for Potential Closure of European Airspaces Due to Re-Entering Space Objects (https://doi.org/10.1109/DASC66011.2025.11257354)
- Aircraft Takeoff Weight Estimation: The EUROCONTROL PRC 2024 Data Challenge — Journal of Open Aviation Science
- Aircraft-Specific Vehicle Routing Profile for Taxi Route Finding — 2025 Integrated Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Conference (ICNS)
- Reviews and Responses for Training a Machine Learning Model to Detect Holding Patterns in Aircraft Trajectories — Journal of Open Aviation Science
- Training a Machine Learning Model to Detect Holding Patterns in Aircraft Trajectories — Journal of Open Aviation Science (https://doi.org/10.59490/joas.2024.7943)
- A Novel Approach to Measuring Arrival Efficiency in Multi- Regional Operational Benchmarking — 2024 Integrated Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Conference (ICNS)
- Roadmap for a European Open Science Alliance for ATM Research (https://doi.org/10.59490/ejtir.2024.24.4.7517)
- Studying structural change in the European Aviation Network — SESAR Innovation Days 2023 (https://doi.org/10.61009/SID.2023.1.29)
- Towards characterising inefficiencies and constraints in airport arrival synchronisation for higher levels of operational efficiency — 2023 IEEE/AIAA 42nd Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC) (http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/dasc58513.2023.10311127)
- Reviews and Responses for impunity: Enforcing Physical Unit Consistency at Definition Time in Python — Journal of Open Aviation Science (https://doi.org/10.59490/joas.2023.7149)
- Environmental inefficiencies for arrival flights at European airports — PLOS ONE (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0287612)
- Studying the impact of COVID-19 on the European Air Transportation Network — 2023 Integrated Communication, Navigation and Surveillance Conference (ICNS) (http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/icns58246.2023.10124296)
- Reference Trajectories: The Dataset Enabling Gate-to-Gate Flight Analysis — The 9th OpenSky Symposium (http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/engproc2021013014)
- Building Back Better – Democratization of Performance Monitoring with Open Data — 2021 IEEE/AIAA 40th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC) (http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/dasc52595.2021.9594320)
- Air traffic and contrail changes over Europe during COVID-19: a model study — Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-7429-2021)
- Air traffic and contrail changes during COVID-19 over Europe: A model study (https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-62)
- Supplementary material to "Air traffic and contrail changes during COVID-19 over Europe: A model study" (https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-62-supplement)
- Towards Reproducibility in ANS Performance — SESAR Innovation Days 2019 (https://www.sesarju.eu/sites/default/files/documents/sid/2019/papers/SIDs_2019_paper_70.pdf)
- Investigating ADS-B MOPS Compliance using Open Data — Proceedings of the 7th OpenSky Workshop 2019 (https://easychair.org/publications/paper/tx37)
- Open Flight Trajectories for Reproducible ANS Performance Review — SESAR Innovation Days 2018 (https://www.sesarju.eu/sites/default/files/documents/sid/2018/papers/SIDs_2018_paper_4.pdf)
- Initial Implementation of Reference Trajectories for Performance Review — SESAR Innovation Days 2017 (https://www.sesarju.eu/sites/default/files/documents/sid/2017/SIDs_2017_paper_40.pdf)
- Correlation techniques for digital time-of-flight measurement by airborne ultrasonic rangefinders — Intelligent Robots and Systems '94. 'Advanced Robotic Systems and the Real World', IROS '94. Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ/GI International Conference on

## Honors and awards

- Best of Session for AT8 Flow Management — Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC)

## Languages

- French (professional_working)
- English (full_professional)
- Italian (native)

## Other profiles

- orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8584-9131
- github: https://github.com/espinielli