A major initiative has been launched to create a seamless airspace region in south-east Europe to handle predicted civil traffic growth of up to 30% a year in the region by the end of the decade.
The plan is being driven by the European Commission and the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe and is strongly supported by Eurocontrol. It would be implemented under an extension of the European Union’s Single European Sky (SES) programme to the seven countries involved – none of which is yet in the EU. This would allow for the seven to create one or more functional airspace blocks (FAB) in which airspace areas would be organised regardless of national boundaries, maximising efficiency and hence traffic throughput.
The states – Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania and Serbia and Montenegro, along with the United Nations Interim Mission administration in Kosovo and the Stability Pact for the South of Europe – have agreed to “review the opportunities to implement an FAB in south-east Europe”.
The SES-South East Europe-Functional Airspace Block (SEE-FAB) initiative would respond to increasing concerns about traffic, which has grown by 121% since 2001. Politically, the idea would be promoted under the European Common Aviation Area agreement, signed on 20 December, under which the SES can be legally extended to the SEE-FAB countries.
The initiative will run alongside another planned airspace continuum, the Central European Air Traffic Services (CEATS) scheme, in which two of the SEE-FAB members – Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia (the others are Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia and Slovenia) – already participate.
Francois Rivet, of the EC’s transport and energy directorate, says the two can live together. “We don’t think they will interfere because CEATS covers only upper airspace, whereas the SEE-FAB would include both lower and upper airspace. We see an opportunity to connect them.” Privately, industry sources admit implementing CEATS has been a “nightmare”, adding that, almost a decade after being proposed, it has still not been ratified by all member states.
Another issue is the continued closure of the airspace over Kosovo to civil traffic, which forces aircraft re-routeing on the busy north-west to south-east routes, costing airlines an estimated €300 million ($355 million) a year. Rivet says “we hope the Kosovo problem could be resolved as a side effect of SEE-FAB. It is a very significant piece of airspace as it is at the centre of south-east Europe.”
JULIAN MOXON/LONDON
Source: Flight International
