There is still room for improvement in the performance of air traffic management in Europe, according to a European Commission study published on Thursday 25 January.
The Commission has compared the operational and economic performance of air traffic management in Europe and in the United States since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
While the two systems are operated with similar technology and operational concepts, the number of air navigation service providers is an important distinguishing factor. Whereas US airspace is handled by a single provider, Europe is managed by close to 40 different service providers. Despite efforts under the Single European Sky initiative to reduce fragmentation and better organise European airspace according to traffic flows rather than national boundaries, these many issues have not been resolved (see EUROPE 13334/11). Fragmentation has an impact on air traffic management performance in terms of operations and costs.
The Commission therefore states that initiatives on the scale and impact of traffic flows are necessary. Similarly, it recommends better quantification of capacity utilisation, improved evaluation of the effectiveness of vertical flights, improved comparisons of manning levels and analysis of the costs of supporting facilities and equipment.
To read the study: https://aeur.eu/f/am9 (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)