Citation
(2007), "Delivering today and shaping the future", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 79 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2007.12779dab.020
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Delivering today and shaping the future
Delivering today and shaping the future
With the number of flights expected to grow by around 4 percent in Europe in 2007 and to reach 16 million by 2020, EUROCONTROL is working together with the aviation industry to accommodate this growth safely, efficiently and in a sustainable manner in the short, medium and long-term.
On a busy day in Europe around 5,000 aircraft perform more than 30,000 flights between typically 600 airports forming a complex network of routes. In 2006, 9.6 million flights took to the skies – a 4.1 percent increase on 2005. In spite of this growth, the average air traffic flow management delay for 2006 remained at 1.9min as in 2005.
In the short/medium term, EUROCONTROL's key part- European program – the Dynamic Management of the European Airspace Network (DMEAN) -stands out for its crucial role in improving the use of latent capacity to meet the capacity demand and flight efficiency requirements for the years between now and 2010.
DMEAN will consolidate a number of current air traffic management (ATM) developments and improve information exchange processes to allow the ATM system to cope with demand and capacity situations in a more dynamic manner.
“Part of the capacity created through past and current efforts is still latent. Using it fully at a low additional cost and across the entire European airspace network is the challenge we at EUROCONTROL have taken up with all our operational partners – air navigation service providers, airports and the civil and military airspace users,” said Joe Sultana, DMEAN Program Manager. “With DMEAN we aim to boost capacity further by 10 per cent and enable the network to meet the en-route delay target of one minute per flight by 2010”.
For the long-term, up to and beyond 2020, the aviation industry agrees that a paradigm shift is required and that there is a need to move towards a new-generation ATM systems. This is the focus of SESAR, the European ATM modernization program supporting the realization of a Single European Sky.
SESAR will combine operational, technological and economic solutions to enable the development of air traffic. It will synchronise the plans and actions of the different ATM stakeholders and federate their resources for the development and implementation of the required improvements throughout Europe.
“SESAR will deliver a simplified European framework where all stakeholders have a role to play in progressively modernizing the system to cope with the increased traffic demand in a safe, secure, cost-effective and sustainable manner,” concluded Bernard Miaillier, the SESAR Programme Manager at EUROCONTROL.