Brussels, 07/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - The air industry could lose up to €800 million and passengers would suffer longer delays because of the flight delays expected in the summer, according to European Commission forecasts unveiled at a high-level conference on implementing the Single European Sky, a conference held in Budapest on 3 and 4 March 2011. The question of delays dominated debate at the conference, which was organised to discuss reform of the EU air traffic management system. To prevent delays, industry representatives met in the Hungarian capital and called for the fastest possible establishment of an EU air traffic control group and a single manager of European airspace. The conference adopted a Budapest Charter, setting out recommended measures to improve air traffic control.
The main reasons for the delays are the shortage of air traffic controllers in some Member States because of delays in implementing EU legislation in this connection and the fact that there are not enough controllers in employment to deal with the rising passenger numbers. At this stage, the Commission suggests that the average flight delay in the summer of 2011 will be 1.8 minutes per flight, meaning that of the 9.6 million flights in Europe, around 250,000 would be at least 30 minutes late and 25 million passages would arrive more than 20 minutes late. In addition, one flight in four would be over 15 minutes late. Flights to south-east Europe (crossing Germany and heading for Cyprus, Malta and Greece) will be the worst affected. The delays will cost industry at least €800 million, not to mention any delays caused by strikes or weather conditions, explains the Commission.
The Budapest Charter calls for a speeding up of measures to increase air traffic controller mobility, currently vetoed by trade unions. Experts said that a pool of air traffic controllers should be set up to help countries that do not have enough staff. The Charter says that before any formal decisions are taken by the Commission (expected in May 2011) to activate a single European air traffic network, that cooperation among functional airspace blocks (FAB) needs to be extended, along with cooperation between FABs and non-EU countries and harmonised air traffic charging systems (centralising equipment purchase at EU level). (A.By. trans fl)