The Economist Newspaper published an article this week entitled “A holding pattern” (regret can’t reproduce here for copyright reasons) espousing that European ATC is in a mess and that ATC Unions and other vested interests are blocking reform. Quite provocative at times, slightly misinformed although several assertions definitely resonate.
The report referred to is quite hard reading – seems to be full of quite a lot of high level worthy but relatively vague intentions to me. It certainly indicates that the EU are moving away from their strategy of redrawing FABs (Functional Airspace Blocks that span more than one country, violently opposed by ATC unions and other vested interests) in favour of giving more power to EASA (who would have a new role as Economic Regulator). They want more flexible training for ATC staff so they can operate more flexibly in different roles. The report was written by “The Wise Persons Group” which does not appear to include any GA representation.
I’m frankly disappointed on the content of the newspaper article. It may be fair to say that ATC is using some pretty old tech (e.g. radar vectoring by voice command, ILS approaches) but quite untrue that we haven’t moved on from predominantly VOR navigation of the 1960s to predominantly GPS today. Eurocontrol flight plan flow control has definitely reduced the frequent holding overhead Heathrow that I recall from the late 90s. Paper strips have been replaced by electronic ones in several control towers I’ve visited.
I disagree that privatising ATC makes is more efficient or safer – it may be made cheaper by reducing services to those other than airlines and perhaps this is one reason why FAA privatisation has such strong opposition in the USA.
I can’t say I really understand the implications that SESAR might have on the GA community, either what we have to watch out for or anything that might benefit us in the medium/long term, so would welcome any insights others have on the above.
DavidC wrote:
it may be made cheaper by reducing services to those other than airlines and perhaps this is one reason why FAA privatisation has such strong opposition in the USA.
From what I can find of info, the FAA ATC privatization is just a charade, but comes up every now and then when a new (and obviously ignorant) administration is elected. It will never happen due to national security reasons. This is beneficial for GA, but not necessarily airlines, who would be better off with a more “to the point” ATC made exclusively for them.
It’s exactly the same in Europe. “Airline style” ATC, efficient but inflexible, is a threat to military operations which requires high flexibility. In Europe military flights infringes almost as much as private GA. This could be a direct result of a too rigid and inflexible system being pushed on by the airlines for them to save a few pennies. But, I know little about this other than what I read in media and elsewhere.
Average delays on flights more than doubled since 2011
That may be because more people are travelling (cheap flights) but airport capacity has not gone up.
ATC flow delays cost $20 billion to the economy last year, up 28% on 2017
I can’t see how anybody can put a number on that…
Virtually no progress in ATC since 1960, apart from at Maastricht Upper Airspace Control centre. The writer should get out more – I can definitely vouch that the swish new UK centre at Swanwick is a leap or two ahead of East Drayton, and almost every tower used by airliners is unrecognisable from 50 years ago. I’m sure other countries are similar.
Most airline traffic still runs on INS/DME navigation and radar vectoring in terminal areas, leading to ILS approaches. It’s a good robust system, immune from GPS problems.
Publicly owned ANSPs may encourage excessive pay demands from controllers, quoting that the Spanish government found 10 controllers paid over €800,000 per year
That one got famous about 10 years ago. IIRC, there was a way in Spain for an ATCO to make himself available for long shifts and get bonuses on top of bonuses. A bit like GPs can make a lot of money by being on night callouts, but subcontracting them to keen young docs from India and such… not sure if that still goes on. In Spain, to get the 800k, I think you had to make yourself available for 24hrs/day 
and they paid it out because (a) there was no rule against it and (b) the unions are very powerful.
IMHO privatising ATC is a dumb move. You just end up with a typical large company which fills up with creepers, crawlers, brown-nosers, career ladder climbers, company politics… just like the old nationalised outfit before it It is not a service which can simply have a price tag put on it. It is exactly like privatising the police.
