Euro sky plan realistic, but needs drastic efficiencies: IATA

THE International Air Transport Association (IATA) has berated Europe's air navigation service providers (ANSPs) for criticising Single European Sky performance targets for being "unrealistic."

Criticism was levelled by the Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation in its assessment of the proposed Single European Sky objectives for 2010-2014 that targets - 50 per cent cuts in air traffic control costs, a three-fold increase in airspace capacity, safety improvements by a factor of 10, and a 10 per cent cut in aviation's environmental impact.

"Europe's air traffic management is a mess, and it needs to get better," said IATA director general and CEO Giovanni Bisignani. "The need for Europe to achieve the efficiencies of a Single European Sky was evident to the whole world during April's volcanic ash shutdown."

Mr Bisignani said the SES objective of a 50 per cent cut in air traffic management costs by 2020 is critical for a competitive European air transport sector.

His comments follow a recommendation by the independent Performance Review Board that ANSPs aim for an initial 4.5 per cent reduction in costs.

"It is very disappointing that the ANSPs are beginning to complain about initial targets, which are simply to absorb the costs of growth with efficiency gains," he said. "In the end, the targets are simply to contain the costs of growth within current costs and resources. That is not a big ask of our partners.

"This is the first step to eventually bring Europe in line with global ANSP costs. There is no time to complain. Europe's ANSP managers need to start delivering greater efficiencies," said Mr Bisignani.

He added that the average daily flight delay in September was 2.4 minutes per flight, higher than the Eurocontrol target of one minute delay during the summer.

July was the worst month, with an average delay of 5.3 minutes, five times the target and nearly double that of July 2009, the report added.
(Source:www.schednet.com)