IATA praised BULATSA for the contribution to the European Airspace

In an analysis published in Airlines, Rory Sergison, IATA’s Head of ATM Infrastructure Europe, said that there are myriad challenges facing European airspace in the coming peak summer months.

“We can’t predict what will happen or how our service partners, such as airports and air navigation service providers (ANSPs), will cope and that makes it impossible for airlines to plan,” he says.

The analysis shows that as a result of the closure of the Russian, Ukrainian and Moldovan airspaces, traffic will continue to be pushed south, overloading the south-eastern European corridor to/from Turkey and Greece which will be already thick with tourist traffic to popular vacation destinations.

The progressive reopening of Asian markets will exacerbate the problem. In addition to all of this is a strong traffic growth in Central Europe and South-eastern Europe, the latter having already surpassed 2019 levels in summer 2022.

“Solutions are not easy to come by,” Sergison says. “There are good ANSPs in Europe. Bulgaria, Romania, and Spain, for example, are handling traffic above their capacity, but are still delivering an excellent service.” According to Sergison, this is a proof that the problem could be solved, but that the overall system is falling short and most ANSPs need to show greater agility in their approach. “European skies were saturated in 2022 and we expect more traffic in 2023,” concludes Sergison. “It will be tough to avoid delays given the challenges the European system faces, but with a combination of procedural, technological, and rostering improvements, we could mitigate the worst of the problems. That will allow airlines to fly published schedules and provide the end consumer with the service required.”