DAVID LEARMOUNT / LONDON
Upper airspace block operational "within a few months", but more complex restructuring will take longer to implement
The European Parliament has at last given Europe the political tools to redesign its skies to increase future air traffic management (ATM) capacity. Airspace users are not expected to notice the benefits much until around 2009, however.
Transport ministers and Parliament last week reached a key agreement on landmark plans to create the Single European Sky (SES) air traffic control concept.
Officials hammered out an agreement under the auspices of the Conciliation Committee - a mediating chamber comprising 15 members of each body - which includes a framework deal and three implementing rules covering air navigation service provision, organisation and use of airspace and interoperability. The agreement also includes a general policy statement covering the controversial topic of military issues related to SES.
The first tangible product of the SES will be a continuous, Europe-wide block of upper airspace above flight level 285 (28,500ft/8,700m), to be known as the European upper flight information region. This will ultimately range from the Atlantic coasts in the west as far as the Ural mountains in the east, and from the northern coasts of the British Isles and Scandinavia south to the Mediterranean.
UK Civil Aviation Authority director of airspace policy John Arscott says most of this seamless block of airspace will be operational "within a few months". The more complex restructuring of lower airspace into "functional airspace blocks" - rather than sectors influenced by national boundaries - will depend on the writing of new regulations.
The Parliament, despite forcing amendments on the SES as originally planned by the European Commission and Eurocontrol, has been in favour of the single sky from the start. But at the end of October the SES plan was blocked when the Council of Ministers disagreed over sovereignty and national military use of national airspace (Flight International, 28 October-3 November).
Formal adoption of the draft is needed, but there seems to be no doubt in Brussels - or in industry - that it will happen. EC transport commissioner Loyola de Palacio says: "After four years of work I am pleased to see that Europe now has a single sky allowing safe, sustainable growth in air transport."
Source: Flight International
