The focus of the Air Transport and Operations Symposium 2011 was about industry and academia considering how air transport should evolve in order to optimise its value in the 21st Century! Slowly but surely, countries are climbing out of the economic recession and growth rates are positive. The aerospace industry can now be very positive about recovery but in that pioneering spirit of the past, needs to focus more than ever on sustaining value in order to evolve faster in the right direction in this transition time of added opportunity; when we can emulate the pioneers of the past! The opportunity that lies in front of us includes other key aerospace performance challenges, such as the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR)'s aims in being able to handle a threefold increase in capacity, improving safety by a factor of 10, reducing environmental impact by 10% and reducing expenses by a half.

As we enter the 2nd decade of the 2nd century of aviation, and with the EU emissions trading scheme about to enter into force, ATOS 2012 aims to explore how we achieve sustainable progress for the industry. How do we identify, formalize, quantify, optimize and deliver sustained value within the current climate? Can we start to move towards a new Value Operations Methodology that raises the profile of operations research, and incorporates not only cost, but also the environment, safety and capacity into the equation? Indeed, ATOS 2012 aims to build on this aspiration of sustaining value in air transport and operations!

For this 2012 editionit was fantastic that the true integrating spirit of ATOS was reflected in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the International Meeting for Aviation Product Support Processes (IMAPP), SESAR's ComplexWorld and the Association for Scientific Development of Air Traffic Management in Europe (ASDA) joining to make ATOS 2012 the largest and most comprehensive edition yet, with over 200 attendees over the three conference days. The conference splits time equally between academic papers and more applied industry sessions, and it gives me great pleasure to see the majority of the academic papers collated into this 3rd ATOS Proceedings, published both online and in hard-copy format! A selection of the best papers will subsequently be invited for upgrade and submission to the Journal of Aerospace Operations. I hope you will enjoy the material herein and invite you to join us at ATOS in the future!

Prof. Ricky Curran