Europe's Single European Sky project could collapse: IATA

London (Quantum Commodity Intelligence) - The Single European Sky (SES) project to reform Europe's air traffic management system faces collapse if European states do not support the European Commission's proposals to reboot the stalled initiative, warns the International Air Transport Association (IATA) today.

Many European states are considering blocking the reforms in favour of an alternative vision which IATA says will weaken the targets and regulatory oversight from what is currently in place.

The SES has so far failed because air navigation service providers are unregulated monopolies with inadequate targets and insufficient independent oversight, according to IATA.

The Commission's proposal provides a remedy by giving regulators the power to enforce robust performance targets.

The executive branch of the EU wants to create powerful, independent national economic regulators, and an EU-wide regulatory agency.

It also wants to strengthen the pan-European Network Manager, an electronic system for exchanging common aeronautical information, spearheaded by the Brussels agency Eurocontrol.

"Air traffic control is a monopoly business," said Willie Walsh, IATA's Director General.

"In every other business sector, monopoly suppliers are subjected to strong independent regulation—but not in air traffic control. European states make grandiose statements about climate action yet refuse to back common-sense reforms that would force ANSPs to make routings more efficient," he said.

"And, oblivious to the €27 billion collective loss made by European airlines last year, Europe's air navigation service providers are demanding further price increases while sitting on at least EUR 2.5 billion of cash. This is pure madness."

IATA claims SES will improve the safety performance of airlines by a factor of ten, increase capacity and cut delays, and cut airline greenhouse gas emissions by 10%.

SES would add €245 billion to Europe's GDP and a million extra jobs annually from 2035.

IATA calls on the transport ministers to adopt at the next Transport Council on 3 June a more ambitious general approach in line with the Commission's proposal.