A €5 billion hole in the finances of air navigation service providers, 4 million flights lost in the last 6 months, around 60% fewer passengers than in the summer of 2019, 6 million jobs at risk. The figures presented by Eurocontrol Director General Eamonn Brennan to the European Parliament's Committee on Transport (TRAN) on Wednesday 2 September finally convinced MEPs of the extent of the current crisis in the aviation sector.
All links in the chain - from air traffic controllers to aircraft manufacturers - have suffered, and are still suffering, from the measures taken to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, Brennan repeated, predicting a “very slow recovery” and a return to normalcy by 2024 at best. “The winter outlook for the airlines looks very bleak”, he added.
A situation in which European governments should not, in his view, allow themselves so many unilateral travel decisions.
“If governments keep using quarantines and introducing them particularly like the UK did to Spain, like the UK did to France, like issues with Hungary, overnight, with very little notice, then the industry will not recover”, warned the Eurocontrol Director.
This is an observation shared by many MEPs, some of whom describe isolated national efforts to manage the crisis as “utter chaos”, “a mess” and “unpredictable”.
Several MEPs called for common standards and serious coordination at EU level, such as José Ramón Bauzá Díaz (Renew Europe, Spain). He suggested the adoption of a common travel form for all Member States and the establishment of a uniform European testing protocol. This “protocol would tell us very clearly who can and cannot travel, when to test, where to start and where to end”, he said.
Single European Sky. For Eamonn Brennan, also supported on this point by the TRAN Committee, it is urgent that “the European sky needs to be handled as one”.
The key to a sustainable recovery of the aviation sector and the response to this crisis also lies, in his view, in the implementation of the Single European Sky.
But discussions on the SES2+ (‘Single European Sky 2+') package have been dragging on for several years in the EU Council. Despite repeated calls by Eurocontrol (see EUROPE 12429/13), promises by the European Commissioner for Transport, Adina Vălean, (see EUROPE 12430/12) or the ambitions of the German EU Council Presidency in this regard (see EUROPE 12534/11), no progress has yet been made. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)