ATC
Traffic Dip Buys Time As Single European Sky Falls Behind On Key Goals

The reality is pretty obvious: managing fewer flights can only help European air traffic control meet the tough targets that were designed to prepare it for a wholesale transformation to a radical space-based regime. The latest statistics show that Europe-wide, the en-route delay in 2012 is now 0.45 minutes per flight–well down from the figure last year of 1.1 minutes and already lower than the 0.5 minutes target for 2014.

The traffic growth curve has moved most definitely to the right by several years and the region’s air navigation agency Eurocontrol reckons that it will take until 2014 for Europe to get back to the traffic levels it saw back in 2007. But does the prospect of a double-dip recession mean a respite for Europe’s air navigation service providers (ANSPs) during a watershed year that sees both the introduction of binding performance targets and the creation of functional airspace blocks (FABs)?