Reducing air traffic delays - Government response to Select Committee report
Introduction
This paper sets out the Government's response to the Report by the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union, dated 8 May 2001. We welcome the initiative of the Committee in undertaking this inquiry into an important aspect of air traffic management (ATM) and the detailed consideration they have given to the subject.
The Government's response incorporates material provided by the Department for Transport, the Ministry of Defence, and our statutory advisors on ATM matters, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), and deals with the specific recommendations in the report.
European air traffic has grown strongly since the early 1990s as liberalisation of the EU's aviation market stimulated the emergence of several low cost carriers that have helped to reduce air fares and to generate record demand for air travel. This rise in air traffic has been handled safely by European air navigation service providers, but congestion in the skies has increased and delays, the product of maintaining air safety, have risen sharply in recent years. This has prompted much greater scrutiny of military access and use of Europe's airspace.
In recent years there has been some progress in delivering the most effective sharing of airspace between all categories of civil and military users. In particular, the adoption of the Flexible Use of Airspace (FUA) concept, particularly in the UK, has brought significant benefits, although the concept is not fully implemented throughout Europe. This means that a number of problems still exist. This is why the Government congratulates the Committee for bringing together Europe's civil and military ATM sectors in a way that has not been attempted before.
[The Committee's recommendations are addressed in the order they appear in the report with the relevant paragraph number given at the end of each recommendation.]
Recommendations
1.It is, in our view, essential that the revised EUROCONTROL Convention should enter into force as soon as possible. [Para 94]
The Government agrees with the Committee that the revised EUROCONTROL Convention, agreed in 1997, should enter into force as soon as possible. The Government also believes that the European Community should accede to EUROCONTROL. As the Committee has noted (Box 7, page 17), progress on ratification has been slower than we had hoped. This has been not just because of the difficulties surrounding Gibraltar Airport, which have prevented European Community accession to EUROCONTROL, but also because of a continuing legal dispute between the European Commission and EUROCONTROL concerning when EU Member States can ratify the Convention. We, together with many other EU Member States, would prefer the Commission and EUROCONTROL to resolve their differences before proceeding.
As the Committee notes (Para 94), until EUROCONTROL and the European Community are institutionally linked it will not be possible to bring in the full advantages of the revised Convention. However, even with the revised Convention ratified, EUROCONTROL will not have legally enforceable powers. Accession by the EC to the EUROCONTROL Convention will make the EC enforcement procedures available if any EUROCONTROL rules or regulatory decisions, which have formed part of Community law, are not implemented in the UK. In addition, Community Membership of EUROCONTROL will provide a mechanism enabling Single Sky rules to be promulgated across the 15 EUROCONTROL Member States that are outside the EU.
2.We recommend the Government ensure that the necessary clarity be introduced into the relationship between EUROCONTROL and the EC (Para 73). We believe it will be essential for a comprehensive agreement to be drawn up between the two organisations delineating their respective roles and responsibilities (Para 70). [Para 97]
The Government agrees with the Committee that it is essential that the relationship between EUROCONTROL and the European Commission should be based on clear complementary roles. We are concerned to ensure that the transformation of EUROCONTROL regulatory decisions into EC law does not result in two different regulatory regimes as decisions taken by EUROCONTROL could be modified in the course of the EC Regulatory process. However, because the European Community will be bound by its obligations incurred under the revised Convention, a uniformity of both regulatory regimes should be safeguarded. The Government believes effective and efficient co-operation between the Commission and EUROCONTROL is essential from the outset. We understand that both organisations share this vision and are intending to produce a Memorandum of Understanding.
3.Assuming existing planned capacity enhancement measures can be implemented within the predicted timetable, we recommend that the Government should seek to ensure that this body of European-level expertise [EUROCONTROL] is retained to meet the technical challenges of the future. [Para 98]
The Government agrees with the Committee that it is important to retain EUROCONTROL's expertise to meet the technical challenges of the future. Moreover, the growing congestion in Europe's skies make it imperative to retain and build upon EUROCONTROL's ATM expertise. However, ATM capacity has not kept pace with demand despite EUROCONTROL's best efforts. Sadly, a number of the major ATM programmes that EUROCONTROL has managed have not been brought in on time, although member states share part of the blame for these failures. This is why there is an increasing need for EUROCONTROL to concentrate on co-ordinating and managing technical programmes designed to enhance air traffic control capacity, and with the backing of legally enforceable rules and member state co-operation, to assist these programmes being brought in on time and to budget.
4. We recommend a rigorous and clear institutional separation of EUROCONTROL's regulatory and service provision functions. [Para 99]
Both the Government and the CAA welcome the Committee's support for a rigorous and clear separation of EUROCONTROL's service provision from its regulatory ATM functions. As we have said above, we consider that this is a fundamental principle that must be enacted as soon as possible. We are therefore working with other like-minded EUROCONTROL Member States to drive forward a package of reforms in this area.
At the July 2001 EUROCONTROL provisional Council, a paper setting out a proposal for reform of the EUROCONTROL Agency was agreed. Whilst this offers only limited progress on reform, it is nevertheless seen as a step in the right direction towards essential Agency reform. The Government will monitor closely how this agreed reform programme is implemented and will be keen to see progress on further reform measures in due course.
5.We recommend that more work be undertaken in the Community to define the nature and scope of this activity [the extension of the ATM regulatory process to include performance and economic regulation] before the merits of pursuing such regulatory activity at a wider European level are agreed. [Para 100]
The Government agrees with the Committee that airspace and systems harmonisation are priorities and must be taken forward quickly. However, we also agree with Commission thinking on the performance and economic liberalisation aspects of ATM. These are vital components of the whole that must also be pushed forward. By developing a European ATM market, the Government believes that long-term system improvements will be enhanced leading to cost efficiency, a customer-focussed environment, and a better deal for the travelling public and airlines. We recognise that this objective will take time to achieve, and this makes it all the more essential to begin the process of reform as soon as possible.
6.We were unable to gain much insight into the respective roles of the European-level and the national-level ATM regulators envisaged under the Single Sky proposals. We recommend that this be an early priority for further work in this area, both within the European Union and in EUROCONTROL. [Para 101]
As the Committee has correctly observed (Paras 71 and 97), greater clarity of respective regulatory roles, between the Community and its Member States is needed. But the Government is confident this could be undertaken under a single sky regime. We will be seeking to safeguard the UK's established arrangements for regulating ATM, drawing upon Community action only if and so far as the objectives cannot be sufficiently achieved at national level. Indeed, throughout the work of the High-Level Group, set up to consider the Single Sky initiative, the UK has consistently voiced our concern that there needs to be greater clarity between the respective national and international regulatory authorities. But the need for consensus across EU Member States has made it difficult for the Commission to come forward with concrete proposals, particularly given the need for the inclusion of the military authorities within the proposed Single Sky framework.
The Government hopes that when the Single Sky proposals are finally presented to Member States they will provide some degree of clarity on these issues, including on the important role that EUROCONTROL might play in the future.
7.We recommend that these possibilities [for the development of an internal market] be borne in mind when framing new legislation in this area, so as not to inhibit such a development in due course (Paras 62, 63 & 64). [Para 102]
The Government welcomes the Committee's recommendation that legislative proposals under Single Sky should be framed to enable the development of an internal market in European ATM. This is consistent with UK policy where since the start of the Single Sky initiative we have been working to ensure that the draft framework regulation creates such an environment. As the Committee notes (Para 62), the UK is not alone in seeing the great potential for improving the performance of Europe's ATM system through a liberalisation process and greater cross-border provision of air traffic services. But nor is there yet a clear majority in favour of such a process.
8.We recommend that wherever possible civil/military concerns should be dealt with in this way [by means of the Community's existing legal processes]. [Para 103]
The Government notes the Committee's recommendation that Pillar 1 of the European Union be used as the legislative base for arrangements covering both military and civil use of airspace, with a safeguard to protect national defence. The Government agrees that it is important that solutions to the current problems of airspace management will require effective civil-military co-ordination, but notes that military matters fall outside the scope of the European Community. It may be necessary therefore to consider alternative means of effecting such co-operation, including the possibility of separate international treaty arrangements.
9.We recommend that any arrangements for discussing civil/military issue affecting the countries of the EU should be designed in such a way that:
they are properly integrated with the detailed civil and military technical work on airspace design with EUROCONTROL;
they are suitably connected to civil/military planning within the non-EU Member States of EUROCONTROL. [Para 105]
The Government agrees that the way in which any EU arrangements for airspace management affect civil/military co-operation should be consistent with work undertaken by EUROCONTROL (which, of course, has 15 non-EU Member States). We note, however, that this is already occurring at present within EUROCONTROL in the Civil/Military Interface Standing Committee (CMIC). There is scope for improving the activities of CMIC and there are plans to enhance its effectiveness. Ultimately, it is up to state military authorities to make the civil/military arrangements within EUROCONTROL more effective, and the recent introduction of a CMIC sub-group to deal with military airspace matters should improve the process.
10. To this end we recommend the consideration of a link between EUROCONTROL's Civil Military Interface Committee and whatever committee or other body is established for EU countries under the Second Pillar. This could be achieved by ensuring that the same persons belong to both committees (Para 91[d]). [Para 106]
The Government agrees that whatever new arrangements are put in place in the EU in the context of Single Sky, those arrangements should be consistent with the work of CMIC and linked to it where appropriate. The regulatory process is most likely to be effective when states present a single co-ordinated position (i.e. one that both the military and civil representatives have agreed). This will go far towards ensuring integration between the civil and military national authorities and make it easier for common positions to be agreed at the European level.
The Government considers that CMIC is an appropriate forum for developing technical positions on airspace and other issues, and that CMIC could continue to play an important, and increasing, role in defining and improving the links between European civil and military authorities.
11.We recommend that the steps necessary to address the problems [the substantial adverse effect on civil aviation of airspace reserved for military use], set out in our report and elsewhere, should come high on the agenda of Europe's Transport and Defence Ministers (Para 86). [Para 107]
The Government agrees that, despite efforts to adopt the Flexible Use of Airspace concept across Europe, airspace reserved for sole military use still has a serious impact on the efficiency of civil air transport. It is one of the Government's prime objectives in supporting the Single Sky process to promote the Flexible Use of Airspace concept.
EU Heads of Government have already endorsed this initiative at recent European Councils (at Stockholm and Gothenburg) and we expect them to continue to do so, demonstrating the commitment of all relevant functions of government to Single Sky.
12.We recommend that more work should be put in hand, by Member States, by EUROCONTROL and the users, i.e. the airlines, whether using simulation techniques or in other suitable ways, to analyse the magnitude of these adverse effects on the capacity of the airspace and the economic cost to the airlines, as well as on the directly measurable delays caused by military operations (Para 42). [Para 108]
The Government agrees that a closer focus on the measurement of the effect of military operations on civil use of airspace is essential. But much information is already available. We know, for example, that military activities result in 4% of delays across Europe; and that in some civil sectors the delay can be as much as 22%. One of the proposals under Single Sky is to enhance the collection of statistical information. This should help overcome some of the difficulties the Committee (Para 42) alludes to in its report. In addition, the EUROCONTROL provisional Council in July 2001 agreed to enhance the work of the Central Office of Delay Analysis (CODA).
One particular area where the Government considers that further work is necessary is the consideration of the potential benefits that could be generated from a re-organisation of the whole of Europe's airspace. The Committee's report includes two maps of Europe's current airspace structure. As can be clearly seen from these maps, despite the introduction of the Flexible Use of Airspace concept, military training areas across Europe continue to create a number of choke points through which civil traffic must travel. A reduction in the number of these choke points would, of course, be beneficial to civil airspace users. The Government therefore supports the need for further analysis on how the performance of the overall ATM system could be improved by redesigning the airspace.
13.We recommend that work be put in hand immediately to resolve the problems posed by the "CBA1" military area in North West France (see Para 39). This work should be supervised at the level of Director General of Civil Aviation in the UK and at equivalent level in France in view of the importance of the widespread adverse effect of this situation over large areas of European airspace (see Para 88). [Para 109]
Since 1999, the issue of "CBA1" has been addressed at ministerial, senior official level, and between the UK and French air traffic service providers. The result has been to reduce the amount of delays caused by "CBA1" (down to 1.5% of all UK ATM delays in June 2001), primarily because of an enhanced relationship between French military and UK civil controllers. But the Government agrees that a long-term solution is required. We expect this to be facilitated by the sort of proposals arising under the Single Sky initiative and not by further contact at the political level. Nevertheless, the UK DGCA will raise this issue at a suitable early opportunity with his French counterpart.
14.We recommend that, the Government urge its EU colleagues to draw up the ground rules for a review of this issue [the location of military reserved airspace]. [Para 110]
The Government notes that the High-Level Group Report on Single Sky proposed that the relocation of military activities outside high-density traffic areas should be encouraged. This is clearly a difficult option to pursue given the need for military training to continue and the high costs of moving personnel from one location to another. The Government therefore considers that it is necessary to continue work at a technical level to develop the Flexible Use of Airspace concept. This should be undertaken in conjunction with a rejuvenated EUROCONTROL, with the full backing of the proposed Single Sky Committee, and with the participation of national military authorities.
For the longer term, the Government agrees that Europe's airspace use should be scrutinised closely and arranged more efficiently - "CBA1" is one area, for example, where we would like to see improvements.
15. We further recommend that this review should include the consideration of incentives and compensation to the military for the costs that would be imposed on them as a result of moving the location of some of their military zones (Para 85). [Para 111]
The Government notes that the High-Level Group report said that work needed to be undertaken on the level of mitigating measures and incentives that could be offered to the military. The Government supports the principle of incentives but who will pay, and how much, remains unclear.
16. We recommend that any such review should include a consideration of the scope for identifying common areas of airspace which could be shared on an appropriate basis by two or more European States, since this might reduce the overall requirement for military airspace. [Para 112]
The Government considers that there is scope for imaginative thinking on sharing of airspace for military use on a multilateral basis and we encourage EU States to follow the example of the UK's North Sea ACMI range. Indeed, the Government considers that the increasing pressures on European airspace from civil airspace users are likely to require more multi-lateral solutions in the future.
17.We further recommend that the Government consider taking the initiative in bringing together teams from other European countries, similar to the United Kingdom's Joint Future Airspace Design Team, to promote a common solution (Para 80). [Para 113]
The UK process for determining airspace arrangements is well known throughout Europe. However, the solution is not necessarily compatible in other states with different service provision and regulatory regimes. By one method or another each state already has to decide on a state position for the use of its airspace. We would envisage EUROCONTROL facilitating this type of arrangement on a European basis in the future, in conjunction with the Single Sky Committee.
18.We strongly support any move to use the legal instruments of the Community to ensure that Member States comply with the FUA, and by example, encourage non-Member States to do likewise (Para 82). [Para 114]
The Government welcomes the Committee's support for the Flexible Use of Airspace concept which has been a success where implemented fully as in the upper airspace in the UK. Unfortunately, despite encouragement within EUROCONTROL some states have not fully implemented the Flexible Use of Airspace concept. It is this, and the lack of progress with other initiatives, that leads us to the conclusion that effective enforcement powers will be essential in the future. We believe that the EU will eventually be able to deliver this as part of its Single Sky initiative.
19.We recommend that the Government, together with their European partners, take steps to draw attention to the benefits to be gained from the introduction of such systems [flexible flight planning systems] (Para 30). [Para 115]
The Government, airlines, and air traffic service providers recognise the benefits that can accrue from more flexible flight planning systems operating on a greater tactical basis. EUROCONTROL's Central Flow Management Unit is working towards this, but within the constraints of the present system which is operating at near full capacity.
The Government agrees that such flexibility will be an essential component for the successful introduction of free-route arrangements. But the biggest barrier to widespread use appears to be the cost of investment in the necessary system enhancements. The Government therefore considers that the EU should explore what incentives may be necessary to encourage greater and faster take up by the airlines and air traffic service providers.
20.We recommend that the Government examine further the possible advantages of full integration [of civil and military air traffic controllers] on the German and Scandinavian model (Para 83). [Para 116]
The Government notes the Committee's view that operational efficiency might be improved by the integration of civil and military air traffic controllers. At present, each state decides how best to deliver its civil and military air traffic control requirements and the matter has been reviewed on a number of occasions in the UK. The UK arrangements are judged to be appropriate in providing an optimum and safe system with operational co-ordination between civil and military controllers being a standard feature. The London Area and Terminal Control Centre at West Drayton has for many years been a joint civil/military unit with RAF personnel, for example, working alongside their civilian counterparts, in order to handle military air traffic transiting civil airspace sectors safely. Although the Government and the CAA, our statutory advisors on ATM, will continue to keep this under review, we are not persuaded that there is at present an overwhelming case for change.
One important issue, which must be addressed when considering integrating civil and military controllers, is the difference in air traffic control licensing regimes between the military and civil sectors. In the UK, the privileges of a military air traffic control licence are not transferable into the civil arena because of its differing training and competency requirements. Any attempt therefore to create a single licence valid not just across Europe, but also transferable between the civil and military sectors, will take time. Nevertheless, the High-Level Group Report on Single Sky indicated a desire to examine how integration could be achieved, and the Government will scrutinise any proposals arising from the Single Sky initiative closely.
21.We urge the Government to obtain assurances that the views of all those concerned, and especially technical input from users, will be considered at every stage of the implementation of the "Single European Sky" proposals. [Para 117]
The Government supports the Committee's view and is acutely conscious of the essential need for transparency and for wide consultation among all stakeholders with a legitimate interest. We are content that so far the Single Sky proposals have been developed in a manner consistent with these objectives and we will make every effort to ensure that this approach continues during implementation.
