EC Urges Work to Advance Single European Sky

March 16, 2007 // Published as a news service by IHS

The EC feels that air traffic management needs to become more organised at the European level, but fears that the progress over the next two years will not be sufficiently robust and beneficial.

The Single European Sky initiative intends to enhance current safety objectives, optimize capacity and increase overall efficiency. The key to a rational organisation of airspace is integration of management across borders through functional airspace blocks. These should be based on operational requirements - in particular traffic flows - rather than existing national borders.

"Airspace users expect a high quality and a cost-efficient service from air navigation services. The current fragmentation of the air traffic management industry in a patchwork serving a global industry is an obstacle to efficient service provision. Member states must overcome fragmentation and create regional providers to take advantage of economies of scale. It is the duty of the commission to recall member states to their obligations," stated Jacques Barrot, EC vice president in charge of transport.

The requirement to build functional airspace blocks is a cornerstone of the Single European Sky legislation. Since the conciliation in December 2003, the European Parliament has expressed concern about the efficiency of the procedure leading to the establishment of these blocks. The current rules leave all initiative to the member states, creating a "bottom-up approach." The EC would like to review this procedure based on actual implementation experiences that have been reported.

Although discussions on creating functional airspace blocks have begun in nearly all member states, few projects are promising enough to meet the European Community requirements by the end of 2008. The challenge is to turn the European service providers, which are, in fact, global dwarfs in terms of airspace, into bigger players. This transformation would also offer the opportunity to operate the air traffic centres at a more functional size and to get rid of the multiplicity of technical systems along with their high maintenance costs. (The annual bill for the current fragmentation in systems is calculated at around €1 billion in a €7 billion market.)

The challenge is to initiate the process of defragmentation in a smart way at the lowest possible cost for airspace users and rely on appropriate social dialogue structures to ensure a smooth transition. That is the obligation imposed upon member states also as owners of the service providers (apart from the U.K., where the national air traffic services provider has operated as a private public partnership since 2001).

Further information on the Single European Sky is available on the Air Transport Portal of the European Commission.

Source: European Commission.