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The Single European Sky |
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The idea of a single sky for Europe is one of long-standing. Indeed, EUROCONTROL was created in 1960 for the express purpose of creating a single upper airspace by its six founding member states. This purpose was only partially fulfilled at the time - but the idea remained a tenacious one.
Over the last decade, air traffic has grown by more than 50%. Europe now has close to 8.5 million flights per year and up to 28,000 flights on busiest days. Even so, airspace capacity has been increased by 80% since 1990.
These results are good but the growth of traffic is set to continue. EUROCONTROL expects that today’s traffic will have doubled by 2020. Current systems, with ongoing improvements, should be able to handle this increased load until the middle of the next decade. After that, more radical measures are called for in order to avoid serious congestion.
The Single European Sky initiative is confidently expected to lay the foundations of a unified system which will be able to cater for the anticipated growth.
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A Single Market, A Single Currency, A Single Sky? |
Europe eliminated frontiers on the ground with the 1985 single European market. It dismantled economic frontiers with the 1990 economic and monetary union. It is a view widely held that borders in the sky should not exist.
In spite of much effort to modernise and streamline it, Europe’s air traffic management system remains safe but fairly costly. It is also hampered by heterogeneous working practices and constrained by air route networks which, in the main, are based on national borders and not air traffic flows.
The Single European Sky initiative puts forward a legislative approach to solving the issues that currently affect air transport as well as enabling ATM to cope with future demands.
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Unified Air Traffic Management |
The Single European Sky launched by the European Commission was drafted with the following objectives:
- to restructure European airspace as a function of air traffic flows, rather than according to national borders;
- to create additional capacity; and
- to increase the overall efficiency of the air traffic management system.
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The European Commission’s ATM legislative package of four regulations covers the essential regulatory elements to be developed in order to achieve a seamless European Air Traffic Management System. They are:
- A Framework for the Creation of the Single European Sky.
- The Provision of Air Navigation Services.
- The Organisation and Use of Airspace.
- The Interoperability of the European Air Traffic Management Network.
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EUROCONTROL has considerable expertise and experience in these fields; expertise and experience which is applied to help make the Single European Sky become reality.
The European Community will become a member of EUROCONTROL. Currently the Community membership is being implemented on a provisional basis to enable Community participation during the ratification process.
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Last validation: 13/01/2009 |
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