Julian Moxon/PARIS
AFTER TWO YEARS OF controversy, Vienna in Austria has been provisionally chosen as the location of the Central European Air Traffic Services System (CEATS).
The decision follows the failure by the seven CEATS countries (Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia) to agree on a location for the centre, which was originally to have been installed in a brand-new, Maastricht-like, upper-airspace air-traffic-control centre (ACC).
Austria will now host what amounts to a much less ambitious system, to be sited in the Vienna ACC. Hungary and the Czech Republic have not joined the "CEATS 1", since they are introducing new ACCs of their own. A future "CEATS 2" has not been ruled out, and could be operational in 2005, "...but only if we can agree on a location quite soon", says one source.
Hungary had pitched for the full-up CEATS to be located in its Budapest ACC, saying that it would be "three times" less expensive than one based in Vienna. A senior Hungarian air-traffic-services official says that the country is "...not interested in an interim solution". The two-track decision will "...force users to pay twice-again in ten years' time", he adds.
The CEATS 1 service will be provided by Eurocontrol staff working within the Vienna ACC. Final approval is expected at the end of October.
Source: Flight International
