At their recent Council meeting, the 37 Member States of EUROCONTROL focused their attention on the performance of the European Air Traffic Management (ATM) system. The meeting, chaired by Mr Nils Gunnar Billinger…
At their recent Council meeting, the 37 Member States of EUROCONTROL focused their attention on the performance of the European Air Traffic Management (ATM) system. The meeting, chaired by Mr Nils Gunnar Billinger, Director General of Civil Aviation in Sweden, includes high-level civil and military representatives from EUROCONTROL’s 37 Member States and the European Commission.
Upon recommendation from the Performance Review Commission in its latest report (PRR 2006), the Provisional Council formally adopted performance targets for safety, delays and efficiency of the European ATM system.
The Provisional Council confirmed minimum levels for safety management and safety regulation maturity to be reached by all service providers and regulators by 2008.
PRR 2006 underlines that delays are rising again for the third consecutive year. The meeting agreed that the European performance target for en-route air traffic flow management delays remains set at one minute per flight until 2013. The meeting also urged states, air navigation service providers and military authorities to fully implement local capacity and network programmes in order to enhance the performance of the European air traffic management system.
“The one minute target for en-route delay is considered to be the optimum performance and is achievable,” said Victor M. Aguado, Director General of EUROCONTROL. “However, in order to ensure that we can provide airlines and passengers with the service they need, we must strengthen the pan-European network approach to capacity provision.”
PRR 2006 notes that each aircraft flies an average of 48.6 km more than necessary due to the structure and use of en-route airspace (5.9% of distance flown). In order to improve the corresponding environmental and financial impacts, the meeting adopted a target to reduce the additional distance flown by 220 million km between 2007 and 2010 – the equivalent of 5500 flights around the earth. This will result in a saving of 1 billion Euro and will reduce CO2 emissions by 2.3 million tones.
Efforts are already being made on a pan-European level, coordinated by EUROCONTROL to further improve efficiency of the European route network. The Dynamic Management of the European Airspace Network (DMEAN) programme is consolidating a range of programmes to increase safety, capacity, cost-effectiveness and interoperability. If full implementation of this programme is achieved, on a yearly basis, reduced delays could save up to 500 million Euros, increased flight efficiency could save a further 200 million Euros and 120,000 tonnes of CO2 would not be emitted.
Finally, the Provisional Council agreed to the accession of the Republic of Montenegro as the 38th Member State of EUROCONTROL and appointed Members of the Performance Review Commission for 2007-2009,.
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