Air traffic control association says structure creates conflicts of interest
Eurocontrol and its mandate should be restructured to make them more responsive to the needs of air navigation service providers (ANSP) as they are forced to change to meet the demands of the Single European Sky, according to the Civil Air Navigation Service Organisation (CANSO), the trade association for privatised or corporatised ANSPs.
Also, the agency must be structurally separated from the European Commission, operate more closely with service providers, and give up its own role as an ANSP in regions like the Maastricht upper area control centre (MUAC), it says.
At present, claims CANSO, Eurocontrol's structure creates conflicts of interest and there is a need for changes of emphasis in several areas including:
* A conflict between its regulatory role and its "service provision activities", and any Eurocontrol ANSP is "effectively subsidised", which is unfair to other ANSPs;
* the risk of regulatory confusion caused by having more than one regulatory authority for the air traffic management industry, namely the European Commission and Eurocontrol itself;
* insufficient involvement of the service providers in the decision-making process "on issues associated with providing or improving the services for which they are accountable";
* insufficient Eurocontrol attention to cost effectiveness, says CANSO, explaining that "in a time of strong pressure on the ANSPs for cost reductions", the cost of Eurocontrol has gone up, influencing the ANSP unit rates.
But, says CANSO, Eurocontrol's "considerable resources and expertise, and its experience at managing programmes must surely be utilised to benefit European ATM and ANSPs, individually and collectively through CANSO." It should also continue to run common-use facilities like the Central Flow Management Unit, to operate the user charges clearing house, and to provide support and research and development to back ANSPs, says CANSO.
CANSO secretary general Alexander ter Kuile says: "The status quo is no option. EU member governments, through the Lisbon Declaration, have made a firm commitment to a competitive and efficient Europe. European ANSPs are united in their ongoing search for operational efficiencies, for which ATM restructuring is essential."
DAVID LEARMOUNT / BRUSSELS
Source: Flight International
