The summer and autumn months have seen strong air traffic growth in the FAB CE region, with a slight increase in air traffic flow management (ATFM) delays over 2016, mainly as a result of more volatile weather conditions.
Although ATFM delays during the peak summer months increased compared to the same period in 2016 – reaching an average of 0.52 minutes of en-route ATFM delays-per-flight in July 2017 against 0.32 minutes in the same month in 2016 – this is still a considerable improvement on 2015, when average en-route ATFM delays-per-flight peaked at 0.78 minutes. And by far the largest cause of delays has been weather, rather than ATC capacity or staffing issues which have in the past been two of the largest causes of delays.
“In August 2016 nearly half the delays were caused by a lack of ATC capacity – fast forward to August this year and capacity issues accounted for only about an eighth of all delays.” says Matej Eljon, FAB CE Programme Manager and Director of FAB CE Aviation Services.
The summer months saw particularly strong growth in traffic. According to figures compiled by Eurocontrol, traffic in controlled airspace grew by 5.0% in August 2017 over the same month in the previous year, reaching 7,485 average daily flights. For the year to date, traffic is up 4.7% over the same period in 2016.
Low-cost airline traffic was 5.3% higher than in August 2016, averaging 2,472 daily flights, while business aviation movements averaged 426 daily flights, an increase of 12.0%. Low-cost airline traffic now accounts for just over 30% of all FAB CE aircraft movements for the year so far, while scheduled airline traffic represents just over 50% of the total figure.
“The busiest day over the summer period – June to the end of August – was 29 August, where controllers managing FAB CE airspace handled 7,973 flights,” says Matej Eljon. “We are currently one of the fastest-growing traffic regions in Europe.
Eurocontrol’s seven year traffic forecast, published in February 2017, predicted a high-end annual traffic growth rate of 4.9% for FAB CE in 2017 over 2016. In the longer term, between 2016 and 2023, the base-line forecast for FAB CE is for an average annual increase rate of 2.9%.