Covid 19

Europe’s airlines have for many years been advocating change to the way air traffic management (ATM) services in Europe are provided, to increase operational and financial efficiency. The COVID-19 crisis and the push for more environmentally responsible flights has given further impetus for urgent change according to Achim Baumann, Policy Director at Airlines for Europe (A4E), Europe’s largest airline association.

What changes have you expected to see from ATM service providers because of the COVID-19 crisis?

Europe’s airlines experienced something that has never happened before: a halt to all operations. Airlines parked aircraft and furloughed staff to minimise operational costs while ensuring that when business returned, there would still be a skilled workforce available.

Looking at it from the outside, we are baffled that for air navigation service providers (ANSPs) with almost zero traffic – their cost base hardly changed at all. In terms of ATC charges and performance plans submitted by the ANSP community for Reporting Period Three (RP3), the cost reduction in 2020 and 2021 is comparatively low, given the traffic figures. I expected that with the downturn – and at this cost level – there would have been an opportunity to at least prepare for the “after-crisis” period by restructuring airspace and taking other actions to avoid the delay issues we saw in 2019. As the ones who will be picking up the bill, we would have liked to have had some input into what might be planned.

So how should we reform Europe’s ATM system?

I think two things need to be done. The current financing model for RP3 is not fit for purpose. It does not work in a crisis as it puts all the burden on airspace users, who have had little to no income themselves. So we need to find common agreement on how everyone should get fairly paid for a fair service. The model we currently have goes back to the 1960s. We need a twenty-first century version.

On the operational side, we need to push the network operations rolling plan further. Meaning that information is flowing freely, quickly and early. We need a network-centric mindset where capacity in the network is driven by the needs of airlines. If we plan capacity at a network level it doesn’t matter whether the flight goes through Swiss or French airspace. To support this, we need
to develop a system where we can move from controlling capacity to moving capacity where it is needed – irrespective of national borders.

This is particularly important when we are looking at providing the most fuel-efficient, optimum flight profile; to do this it will be important to shift capacity where it is needed most and get away from the geo-locked licences of controllers. This, I understand, is at the heart of Skyguide’s Virtual Centre concept, where airspace will be managed as a single continuum irrespective of which centre controllers may be based in.

How do you think we can improve economic regulation?

To start, we need better EU-wide coordination so that when issues such as COVID arise, it’s not every nation for itself.

In 2017 we introduced the stripless system, which was the first tranche of the Virtual Centre. With that we created a fully electronic environment for the controller. Although it took a while to get used to it, they now really appreciate the human machine interface. We have managed to increase capacity very significantly and have seen a return on investment of between CHF 7 million and CHF 8 million a year against an investment of CHF 57 million. That’s huge for the ATM world.

There is also an elephant in the room when it comes to the current key performance indicators (KPI) and how they are set up. We all agree that the current ones don’t really help; they are based on great circle distances and, as stated time and again – these are not necessarily the most fuel efficient routes. We missed the chance to reform in RP3 so we need to start working on RP4 now to
identify and incentivise better behaviour.

We also want to see clear accountability for ANSPs so if their actions are detrimental to the network – that behaviour is penalised. No ANSP wants to deliver a bad service, but we need to incentivise behaviour that supports airlines in achieving
decarbonisation targets. In other words, trajectories and flight plans can be flown as planned by airlines – and this should be the starting point for RP4 KPIs.

What can be done to incentivise all aviation stakeholders to provide the most fuel-efficient and environmentally responsible flights?

The main pressure is on reducing CO2 emissions. In a current limited free route airspace environment, if we file a trajectory the ANSP should let us fly that route unless there is a constraint (meteorological or a military restricted airspace). In addition, mandatory points for border crossing limit flexibility and do not necessarily support CO2 flight efficiency – but that’s probably more a political issue so there needs to be political pressure applied there.

My view is that airlines plan their trajectories in a fuel-efficient way and whoever prevents them from achieving that optimal profile – the State, a military restricted area or an ANSP with a capacity problem – should be held liable for the consequences.