Continued progress in 2024 for a ‘best in class’ implementation. Two FRA projects were implemented in the second half of the year and successfully went into effect on November 28th to allow seamless FRA operations within South East Europe and Central Europe.
Free Route Airspace (FRA) holds great potential to enable the achievement of cost, environmental and efficiency goals. By reducing the load on air traffic controllers and allowing more direct flights.
According to EUROCONTROL1, the benefits that will be achieved upon full implementation of FRA within Europe are quite impressive. A reduction of 1 billion nautical miles flown, 6 million tonnes of fuel utilised, 20 million tonnes of CO2and €5 billion overall cost savings.
FAB CE continues to excel in the region with the implementation of FRA. Jan Klas, Director General, ANS CR and FAB CE Chairman recently stated that “FAB CE is a ‘best in class’ example of the implementation of Free Route Airspace (FRA) within Europe. I would like to highly appreciate the effort and professionalism of ATM experts from all countries”
2024 projects successfully completed
Project 1: SECSI FRA and SEE FRA (Vienna CTA and Praha CTA/Bratislava CTA/Budapest CTA)
The availability of FRA will be 24 hours daily and flight planning will be managed by a single point within the Vienna ACC AoR and single point per FIR applied within the entire SEE FRA. It will not be mandatory to use intermediate points along the FRA boundaries between Vienna, Praha, Bratislava and Budapest to initiate flight planning. The use of LAT/LONG within FRAIT and SEE FRA will be avoided, although it will be allowed within SECSI FRA for indicating changes in speed and or requested flight levels (RFL).
Project 2: BALTIC FRA and SEE FRA (Praha CTA)
The availability of FRA will be 24 hours daily. It will not be mandatory to use intermediate points along the FRA boundaries between BALTIC FRA and SEE FRA (Praha CTA/Bratislava CTA). The use of LAT/LONG within SEE FRA and BALTIC FRA (Warszawa CTA) will be avoided.
Žiga Ogrizek, Slovenia Control, Air Space Taskforce Chairman stated, “Free Route Airspace continues to be a priority for Europe as the need to address the environmental impact of aviation continues to grow within our industry and in the flying public’s view of travel. We need to continue to prioritise this effort and then educate these stakeholders on the benefits observed through the implementation.”