Eamonn Brennan, the Director General of Eurocontrol, called on MEPs to support the European Commission in its drive to complete the Single European Sky (SES) on Wednesday 19 February in an exchange with members of the European Parliament's Committee on Transport (TRAN).
According to the forecasts of the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, “defragmenting” the European sky will make it possible to reduce CO2 emissions by 6 to 10% by improving the efficiency of air traffic flows.
Mr Brennan further stressed that the increase in air traffic in Europe is expected to continue in the long term, despite a significant slowdown in recent months due mainly to the flight ban on the Boeing 737 Max, the bankruptcy of Thomas Cook and perhaps a little 'flight shame' or 'flygskam'.
On the basis of current aircraft orders, Eurocontrol thus forecasts an annual growth of between 0.5 and 1.8% until 2025.
However, “the problem that European citizens face is that the European air traffic network is not able to meet the demand at the moment”, deplored Mr Brennan.
Due to the network’s lack of efficiency and the way it is managed, 650 million European citizens have faced a delay of about 45 minutes in the last 2 years, he explained. According to an assessment by Eurocontrol, this represents a total cost to the economy of 33.1 billion.
The ball is in the States' court. Like Karima Delli (Greens/EFA, France), several MEPs pointed out that the Commission's initiative to speed up the implementation of the Single European Sky - the ‘SES2+’ package - has been blocked for years, not in the European Parliament but in the Council of the European Union.
While Parliament adopted its position at first reading on 12 March 2014 (see EUROPE 11037/7), Member States are indeed facing several obstacles, in particular the issue of Gibraltar airport (see EUROPE 11448/17). (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)