Five months after the Kosovo air campaign ended, European air traffic is still feeling the effects with flights rerouted and certain air space still avoided. "It's still not over yet. Undoing it is quite lengthy and complicated," says Eurocontrol's Ian Jones.
Moves toward a partial return to normality will begin in December, when Eurocontrol publishes its plan to "semi-normalise" use of parts of Yugoslavian airspace, from late January, Jones says. Airspace over Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo will remain under NATO control and unavailable to most civil use.
The war affected an estimated 40% of European civil flights, Jones says. Because all military flights in support of Operation Allied Force were exempt from regulation, civil traffic bore the brunt of the significant increase in flights, through delays and an already tight squeeze being worsened by airspace closures, Jones notes.
In the war's aftermath, the US military in Europe is undergoing its own recovery. At the newly-renamed Initiation Division on Ramstein AB, Germany, USAF Reserve Maj Tom Manley says that some US military aircrews, used to the top priority given to their flights during Allied Force, have had to be reminded that they can claim priority status only when the situation truly warrants it. "We kind of nipped that in the bud right away," Manley says. "That's where we come in as 'the honest broker'."
Source: Flight International