Single European Sky: annual monitoring shows impact of continued lack of air traffic management capacity with negative consequences for environment and climate

The Performance Review Body (PRB) has published the 2022 Annual Monitoring Report and Traffic Light System as part of its annual monitoring of the performance of the Member States of the Single European Sky (SES).

The Annual Monitoring Report evaluates the performance of the monopoly air traffic service providers of Member States against four key performance areas: safety, environment, capacity, and cost-efficiency. The Traffic Light System also captures the environmental performance of air traffic management. It takes different stages of a flight from gate to gate into account based on performance indicators established by the Performance and Charging Regulation of the Single European Sky.

For 2022, the PRB has also published a Digital Dashboard, which is another step towards presenting the results of the monitoring activities in an easily accessible, online repository.

2022 saw continued recovery in EU-wide traffic levels, although they remained below pre-pandemic levels. The Annual Monitoring Report finds that Member States underperformed on capacity, as they had not invested adequately in rebuilding en route capacity after the pandemic. In addition, the route extensions resulting from the closure of Ukrainian, Belarussian and Russian airspace to European traffic, alongside capacity constraints, meant that EU-wide environmental flight efficiency targets were not achieved, and were at the lowest level since 2016.

Member States performed well on the safety targets, with 16 air navigation service providers (ANSPs) having already achieved the third reference period (RP3) targets set for 2024, and the remaining 20 expected to meet the targets by the end of the reference period. All Member States met the cost-efficiency targets for 2022. For some Member States, achieving this was a result of not adequately investing in their post-pandemic capacity.

The 2022 Traffic Light System Report highlights the underperformance of most Member States against their environment targets. In addition to worsened horizontal flight efficiency resulting in higher emissions for the en route segments, there was an overall deterioration in terminal and taxi-out environmental performance, with an increase in additional time spent with engines across many European airports.

Background

The Performance Review Body (PRB) provides independent advice and expertise to the European Commission to improve the performance of air navigation in Europe.

All PRB publications, such as the Annual Monitoring Report 2022, can be accessed via the EU Single Sky Performance website.

Performance Review Body Monitoring Report 2022

2022 Traffic Light System for Environmental Performance