The European Commission's (EC) latest initiative to reduce air traffic delays in Europe by eliminating national airspace boundaries takes a bite at an issue that has long been a thorn in the side of improving the efficiency of the system.
The thorn is buried particularly deep in the collective consciences of those European nations that will have to give up sovereignty over their airspace.
This is mainly, and not surprisingly, because of the perceived strategic importance attached to the need to be able to defend national airspace from incursion and air attack. While historical precedent demonstrates the reasons for such reluctance, it can only be hoped that, in a modern Europe that has shown it can act as a co-ordinated entity in times of international crisis, the perception can be changed.
Now that a high-level European group is studying a "single sky for Europe" there is hope that sense will prevail and that outdated concerns over airspace incursions will yield to the greater economic, social and environmental good (environmental because in a unified system aircraft would no longer have to waste fuel being routed around nationally regulated airspace regions).
In a Europe where the Schengen agreement has eliminated the need for frontier checks, it is harder than ever to justify an air traffic management (ATM) system that in the world's most congested airspace is still restricted by air defence priorities.
The same is true of the reluctance of several nations to be more flexible in their use of airspace for military training. Given the impending changes to the ATM system, which will be based around a global approach to managing aircraft, there is no reason why national military requirements should not be accommodated according to their needs.
Eurocontrol has developed its gate-to-gate ATM plan specifically around the idea of a unified airspace system. Without movement on the part of its members, the project will never be fully realised. European ministers, now under pressure from EC transport commissioner Loyola de Palacio, appear at last to have realised this. It is to be hoped that this will lead to a genuine willingness to move towards a single sky.
Eurocontrol itself still lacks the clout it needs to manage the ATM system efficiently. The EC's accession to membership of the agency will take the process a step further, but it can only become a reality when the European Civil Aviation Conference nations ratify the revised convention that will give Eurocontrol the power to take measures to generate extra capacity while ensuring safety levels are maintained.
The revised convention was first tabled in 1997, but so far only three states have ratified it, not least because ratification, being of legal consequence, is a matter for each individual government and is therefore, by definition, a cumbersome process. But it is usually the case that once a few members commit to such an initiative, others will follow suit. As Europe is facing another summer of unacceptable delays, the need for action is growing all the more critical. Without ratifying the "new" Eurocontrol convention, states will have no cause to complain about this summer's inevitable delay crisis as they are guilty of holding up the full implementation of the very measures which are intended to ease Europe's ATC woes.
Taken together, and given the enormous advances in ATM technology, there is no reason why the current delays should not become any more than a bad memory. Most of the problems are linked to continued dependence on a system that is rapidly becoming overstressed. Air transport, because it is international, depends on international solutions to resolve those problems. Resistance by individual nations to making genuine moves towards airspace unity must be seen for what it is.
Source: Flight International
