Consolidated skies

The Single European Sky (SES) project aims to make flying within Europe simpler. Thirty-eight countries have signed on to consolidate their airspaces into nine regional blocks with joint oversight. The idea is to eventually have all the countries within a block sharing the same air traffic control systems and rules about how, where and when planes can enter their airspace – a far cry from the patchwork of rules that exist now.

Under the current system, international flight is not just about flying from country A to country B. It also involves flying around military zone C, noise reduction area D, and waiting in line for a landing spot at the international airport. And don't forget the change in radio frequencies each time the pilot enters a different country's airspace.

But the single sky would allow pilots to fly more direct routes, which would save fuel and shave minutes off the time in the air. That would also reduce carbon emissions and allow airports to better coordinate which flights land at what times.

Under the Single European Sky plan, Germany would combine its airspace with that of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Switzerland into the "Functional Airspace Block Europe Central." The air over these countries is among the busiest in the world. In Germany alone last year, there were over 2 million takeoffs and landings. And that doesn't include all the other flights that are just passing through.

Kristina Kelek of the German Air Navigation Service, DFS, said the project would create a more streamlined system for airlines, and in turn for customers.

They "would save money, they would save time, we could improve the punctuality, they would have more safety and security through better systems operation," Kelek told Deutsche Welle. "That means all the countries working together have the target to improve the technical systems for flight navigation."

Devil in the details

Everyone under the Single European Sky seems to agree that there are benefits to standardizing flight rules and routes and agreeing on a single set of computer systems to use. But the problem is getting everyone to agree on which rules and routes and systems those should be, and when they should be put into place.

Eurocontrol, the international agency that oversees the process to unite Europe's airspaces, wanted to have the nine regional blocks in place by 2012.

But Bo Redeborn, Eurocontrol's Director of Cooperative Network Design, said getting all the countries to actually implement their goals is easier said than done.

"Everybody kind of agrees as to the value of harmonizing our systems, and doing things in a coordinated way, but only as long as it doesn't change the plan for themselves," Redeborn told Deutsche Welle. "So everybody assumes that they will get by, doing things as they always have been doing them, and the rest will harmonize with them."

Volcanic turbulence

But the recent travel chaos caused by the Icelandic volcano's ash cloud has led some EU and airline officials to renew their calls for Single European Sky to be implemented as soon as possible.

Last Tuesday, EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas said the body "couldn't afford to wait" until 2012. SES will be among the top agenda items at a meeting of EU transport ministers on Tuesday.

"We need a fast coordinated European response to such crises," said Kallas. "Instead we have a fragmented patchwork... without a central regulator, Europe was operating with one hand behind its back."

Lufthansa's chief executive Wolfgang Mayrhuber, speaking at the German airline's annual meeting the same day, said "The Single European Sky is more necessary than ever."

But Bo Redeborn said that the project wouldn't have prevented all the problems that came along with the unprecedented airspace closure due to the ash cloud - although it would have simplified some of the information sharing and decision making.

"Ash is ash, and ash has never been addressed in the context of the Single European sky, and that's what made it difficult," said Redeborn. "We didn't know the values to apply in terms of concentrations of ash for safe [flight] ranges."

Author: Stephanie Siek
Editor: Rob Turner