COLIN BAKER LONDON
A slight improvement in delays over 2001 has won only a cautious welcome from the Association of European Airlines (AEA) which complains that delays are still "unacceptably high".
Some 24.2% of flights were delayed by more than 15 minutes last year, which although among the worst rates on record, is down from the peak reached over the last couple of years. European air traffic management (ATM) co-ordinator Eurocontrol believes it deserves more credit for getting the figures moving in the right direction.
George Paulson, director of Eurocontrol's ATM programme, accuses the AEA of "sour grapes" and points to some "significant investments" by service providers. New facilities in France and Italy were major factors behind improvements over the summer, which brought delays back to 1997 levels, he says.
Last summer's improvements followed a deterioration in the first quarter of the year. Delays spiked again after 11 September but then gradually improved, despite being hindered by a 36-hour strike of French air traffic controllers in December.
The AEA says the figures should be seen in the context of a modest increase in movements up to September and a substantial drop in the last three months of the year. "The relative improvement in October/November, with many fewer flights, merely confirms what we already know: that Europe's fragmented airspace is unable to cope satisfactorily with normal levels of traffic," says AEA secretary-general Karl-Heinz Neumeister. "Let us be clear: normal levels of traffic, and traffic growth, will return."
Eurocontrol is confident it will reduce delays to an overall average of one minute for all flights by 2006. Last year's figure of 2.85mins was just off the 2.8min target, says Paulson, and 2.3mins "looks achievable" this year. Eurocontrol estimates that January's introduction of reduced vertical separation minimum (RVSM) will add 20% more capacity to upper airspace. If service providers look like not adding as much extra capacity as promised, then Eurocontrol pledges to play a "facilitating" role to ensure that sufficient does comes on stream.
| TABLE: Intra-European delay rates | ||
| % of departures delayed by 15min-plus | ||
| Year | Full year | Summer peak |
| 1988 | 19.0% | 22.2% |
| 1989 | 23.8% | 30.8% |
| 1990 | 20.0% | 24.5% |
| 1991 | 18.8% | 25.9% |
| 1992 | 16.6% | 22.6% |
| 1993 | 12.7% | 13.1% |
| 1994 | 13.3% | 13.3% |
| 1995 | 18.4% | 19.5% |
| 1996 | 18.5% | 18.4% |
| 1997 | 19.5% | 24.1% |
| 1998 | 22.8% | 29.2% |
| 1999 | 30.3% | 37.5% |
| 2000 | 25.5% | 28.4% |
| 2001 | 24.2% | 27.0% |
| NOTE: Summer peak is for month of June | ||
Source: Airline Business
