This July 2024, EATC organised the Combined Air Terminal Operations (CATO) at Elmendorf Airbase in Alaska. 15 groundhandlers from Belgium, France. Germany and the Netherlands trained multinationally air terminal operations in the framework of the German exercise Artic Defender 24 (Pacific Skies 24).
Under EATC’s lead, the multinational CATO teams were actively involved handling operations of troops and cargo landing early July in Alaska and redeploying towards the next destinations of the Indo Pacific activities. They worked in close coordination with their US Air Force counterparts on C17, A330 MRTT and A400M assets.
The training included was based on EATC’s EGOM and NATO standard agreements. It allowed the trainees to strengthen in particular their skill to integrate various logistics functions into a centralized operational planning framework and to streamline processes.
The CATO training took place under the umbrella of EATC’s Lighthouse Project, aiming at improving interoperability, effectiveness and efficiency. One of the main pillars of the Lighthouse Project is cross-ground handling.