THE skies are open for business once again, but for how long is anyone’s guess.
The mayhem and uncertainty wreaked by the volcanic eruption in Iceland has cause unprecedented mayhem.
As the dust, quite literally, settles on the crisis one issue has now emerged as a clear priority — the need for reform and greater co-operation between the 650 independent fly zones which make up Europe’s airspace.
At the moment each European country provides its own air control system from 60 centres which divide the European skies into 650 sectors.
In the air this means that each time a pilot moves from one sector to another during a flight, he has to change radio frequency to contact the next air traffic controller.
The cost alone of this fragmentation is estimated to be about €1 billion a year.
Compare this to the US air traffic management system that is twice as efficient, manages double the number of flights as in Europe at the same cost and does it all from just 20 control centres.
The result of such a system in Europe would be that the average flight of 826km could be 50km shorter.
This is the logic behind what is called the Single Sky initiative for Europe.
The first part of the Single Sky initiative is already in operation and encourages greater co-operation on safety and research.
The second — a unified air traffic control system — is not due to come into force until 2012.
The debacle of the past week has given that initiative a major boost and transport ministers have been galvanised into action as the European Commission pushes hard to bring forward the date.
The plan is to have nine zones or Functional Airspace Blocks (FAB) to start with. Ireland and Britain form one, and so far are leaders in the area, being the first to operate on a "two countries, no boundaries" agreement between the two governments, the aviation authorities and their airline and military customers.
It’s an important FAB with 99% of all north Atlantic traffic to and from north America passing through Irish or British airspace.
The results have been excellent with direct routes for transatlantic flights expected to save 2.2m kilometres flown this year, reducing fuel, time and emissions.
"It cuts out the old zig-zag flight paths and offers airlines a straight forward point-to-point route," said Donie Mooney, joint chairman of the FAB management board for Ireland and Britain.
It has streamlined the links between Dublin, Northern Ireland and Scotland and has also increased the route options for planes flying between Ireland, France and Spain which is forecast to save 3,300 tonnes of fuel this year.
The Irish experience is proving the case being made for a single sky over Europe, on costs, safety and emissions.
The cost issue is also substantial, especially with costs increasing, and not just for fuel. Last year the total cost of national air navigation services in Europe was €8.5bn.
Much of this was passed directly onto the airlines making an already difficult year even more so.
Delays in flights also continue to increase, even though the amount of traffic is down. The European Commission estimated that the delays and late arrivals in 2007 totalled 21.5m minutes — about 41 years — and cost €1.3bn.
All in all they reckon that €3.8bn could be saved with a proper joined-up system across Europe.
According to the EU’s commissioner for transport, Siim Kallas, the Single European Sky would cut the cost of air traffic management in half, decrease the environmental impact of flights by 10%, and improve the capacity and already very high safety record of European airspace.
"Time for reflection is over. Europe is paying dearly for fragmentation. We need to act and deliver a seamless, safer, better performing and sustainable single sky for Europe," he said.
The blueprint for Single Sky was finally adopted by ministers from the 27 member states and the European Parliament last November to be implemented by January 2012.
Luc Tytgat, commission expert on Single Sky, explains that while national controls will remain in place there will be an overarching single network manager to co-ordinate all of the sky over Europe.
"Currently every member state decides internally whether to open or close its air space," he said. Eurocontrol, which is owned by the member states, is currently just the implementing body. It knows what each country has decided and takes this into account when clearing flight plans.
The final word on whether national airspace remains open or shut will remain with the national authorities.
The debate is now what kind of network manager is required and whether it’s decision would be binding — something the commission says is a critical issue and they believe it should be binding but member states have yet to agree.
Mr Tytgat said the logical body would be Eurocontrol, but it would need to be changed to take on the new role. However over the weekend Eurocontrol came closer to fulfilling this role when it provided the European Commission with advice.
This happened because the commission was asked by member states to co-ordinate the action on the crisis. The emergency revealed another problem of having so many different authorities in charge of air space — when member states interpreted the same science on the volcanic ash cloud differently, and took differing action, adding to the chaos.
The EU already has a Clean Sky initiative, a €1.6bn research programme co-financed by the EU to help towards cutting emissions by 50% by 2020.
It covers new design of aircraft, engines and control equipment and should make a huge contribution to reduce the emissions that account for about a sixth of those from transport or 3% of the overall emissions.
Safety is overseen by the EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) to which 38 countries belong. The competence of this Germany-based EU agency was recently extended to include air traffic management and air navigation services, giving the EU a single body responsible for safety.
With air traffic expected to grow again, the case for improved safety and greater co-operation has never been clearer as the statistics show that every time traffic doubles, the risks of accidents increases four times.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, April 24, 2010
