Greater operating flexibility thanks to the integration of civil and military air navigation services

Bigger is definitely better when it comes to airspace use. And it was to ensure that, despite its modest size, Swiss airspace can be used as effectively as possible that Switzerland amalgamated its civil and military air navigation services into a single organisation back in 2001.

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Radar flight tracks over Switzerland on 8 September 2008 (green tracks: civil flights controlled by skyguide; blue and red tracks within Switzerland: military flights). Because Switzerland's air navigation services control both the civil and the military air traffic, they can allocate airspace to different users in a flexible way. At certain moments of the day, civil traffic may thus fly outside normal civil airways and use the flight zones reserved for the air force.

A small airspace for several different users
Being a small country, Switzerland has limited airspace. But that same airspace is at the crossroads of several of Europe’s airways; and, as a result, the volumes of traffic using it are particularly high. On top of this, Switzerland has an above-average number of general aviation aerodromes, whose users also demand their fair share of the airspace available; and Swiss Air Force has its own right to airspace areas for its training and manoeuvres.

As soon as more demands are made on an area of airspace than it is able to accommodate, consequences are bound to follow. Scheduled air services will be subject to delays; airspace restrictions will have to be imposed (with general aviation usually suffering more than most); and military exercises can no longer be conducted in the dimensions desired.

In everybody's interests: the integration of civil and military air navigation services within skyguide 
To ensure that all its various users can enjoy their fair share of Swiss airspace use, the country’s Federal Council resolved in 2001 to amalgamate Swiss military air navigation services (which had previously been provided by the Swiss Air Force) and Swiss civil air navigation services (which had previously been provided by Swisscontrol, a company subject to private law) into a single organisation. And so skyguide was born, a service company which has both military and civil authorities and is thus ideally equipped to provide appropriate air navigation services for all airspace users at the best possible price.

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