As European Traffic Rises, So Do Delays
<B>As European Traffic Rises, So Do Delays</B>
By Amon Cohen
The travails of the business traveler battling against the constant outages of the Federal Aviation Authority's dilapidated air traffic control computers are a familiar aspect of road warrior life in the United States. Sad to relate, the problem of delays is just as acute in Europe--and it is getting worse.
No fewer than 21 percent of short-haul flights were delayed by more than 15 minutes in the first quarter of 2000, traditionally the most delay-free period of the year. That represents an increase from 15.9 percent for the same quarter in 1998. Delays are so bad that it is hitting corporations in their pockets as meetings are canceled and well-paid travelers spend time sitting in airports rather than the more productive environment at their destination. They also have to make costly alternative arrangements either to rectify itineraries that go wrong or to anticipate such complications, such as buying fully flexible tickets instead of cheaper, inflexible, advance purchase fares.
One example of a business whose costs are rising is engineering company Carborundum Abrasives of Manchester, United Kingdom. Managing director David Howard recently flew 50 consecutive trips without arriving on time once--not surprising given that U.K. Civil Aviation Authority figures show on-time figures at British airports have declined every year for the last half-decade.
"I find the average wait for flights within Europe is 30 minutes to one hour," Howard said. His pocket has been hit directly, such as the time he had to attend a meeting at an airport hotel in Paris at 9:30 a.m. He could have taken a flight that landed at 9:15 a.m. and walked straight into the meeting, but opted instead to travel the night before and pay for accommodation. His prudence paid off, Howard later discovered the morning flight landed 45 minutes late.
Some areas of Europe are more severely afflicted than others. One of the worst black spots is over Switzerland, northern Italy and southern France. Indeed, Zurich and Geneva top the table for the major European airports with the worst delays. Others that have deteriorated recently, according to figures from the Association of European Airlines, are Istanbul and Amsterdam, although some have improved their performance, most notably Milan and Barcelona.
The Q1 figures actually were significantly better than for 1999, but there were two exceptional factors last year: the Kosovo crisis and restructuring of the airspace between Switzerland and France. The best performers in Q1 were Paris Orly on 12.6 percent and Dusseldorf on 12.7 percent. However, as the AEA points out, "in the mid-1990s, 12.5 percent would have been regarded as an average delay rate and 15 percent a poor result." The number of delays above 15 minutes in Q1 of 1994 was a mere 10.2 percent.
It is small wonder that Lufthansa chief executive Jurgen Weber has talked of the "daily fiasco of flight delays," which can only get worse, given that European air passenger traffic is forecast to grow 5 percent annually for the foreseeable future.
Lufthansa reckons it could improve fuel consumption by 6 percent to 12 percent over the next 20 years if the delay problem could be resolved. As to the cause of all these difficulties, most parties place the blame squarely on the shoulders of Europe's air traffic control system. Unlike the United States, the problem is not principally one of outmoded equipment, although the U.K.'s largest ATC center suffered a four-hour outage in June that led to the cancellation of 316 flights at London Heathrow alone as Britain's ATC capacity was cut by 75 percent. Instances of this type are rare in Europe, however.
Instead, said Airports Council International spokesman Yevgeny Pogorelov, "the problem lies in the political area, not in the technical area." The trouble is that as much as Europe is integrating into a single entity on the ground, it remains deeply divided and partisan at 39,000 feet, with no fewer than 49 different ATC centers controlling western and central European air space. Although a dozen countries in Europe are prepared to harmonize their interest rates and even share a common currency, and although EU airlines may fly anywhere within the union, sovereign states are reluctant to relinquish dominion of their airways. So entrenched is the situation that Pierre Jeanniot, director general of the International Air Transport Association, recently commented: "When you look at the air control map of Europe, you wonder whether the First World War is over."
One adverse consequence of this parochialism is that an inordinate amount of airspace is given over exclusively to the air force of each country. At the same time, the proliferation of ATC centers makes the seamless routing of flights almost impossible. "It is inadvisable that a single airspace should be governed by so many different administrations, often using different standards," said Pogorelov.
Association of Corporate Travel Executives director for Europe Herman Mensink, who has consulted with the European Commission on this issue, points to one absurd example: the refusal of French ATC officials to talk in English, despite this being the lingua franca of global aviation. "I worry about this from a safety point of view as well as efficiency," said Mensink. "Unifying of standards is a priority."
Some action already has been taken. An organization called Eurocontrol works hard to coordinate the existing ATC centers and systems. It claims that the average en route ATC delay for the first five months of 2000 was 2.6 minutes, the same as 1998--in spite of a 15 percent increase in traffic--citing improvements in the alignment of airspace sectors and the construction of a new air route network.
Certainly, there are some, such as U.K. and Ireland Institute of Travel Management chairman Ian Hall, who believe that airports and airlines find it easy to pin the blame for delays on ATC problems. However, this interpretation is refuted by Association of European Airlines information manager David Henderson. "It is difficult to know what airlines can do," he said. "The data show us something like two-thirds of delays arise after the aircraft is ready to leave. Airlines already invest heavily in spare aircraft. I know of one which bought three new aircraft to maintain the integrity of its schedule."
In the middle of this debate are the victims of the situation--travelers and the companies that pay their fares. "Part of the problem is deciding whose spin to believe," said Simon Evans, spokesman for the U.K.'s Air Transport Users Council (AUC), normally an outspoken critic of scheduled carriers. "However, we think ATC is the major cause of delay and that we should give airlines credit for cracking down on late-arriving passengers, oversize baggage and other contributory factors. We line up behind the bulk of the industry in calling for harmonization of ATCs in Europe."
Evans is the first to acknowledge this is easier said than done, but the consensus appears to be that reducing the 49 ATC centers to approximately five, all of them working off the same system, would solve the problem. Finding the political will to apply this solution is an altogether different matter and until recently there seemed little chance of knocking together the required heads. However, a new character has entered the fray in the form of the recently appointed European transport commissioner Loyola de Palacio. Dynamic and determined, she has declared resolution of the ATC issue to be her number-one priority and has won praise all around for her galvanization of EU member countries to find a common purpose.
"She is a lady who gets what she wants," said Mensink, who has been very impressed with her performance to date.
ACI also is more hopeful thanks to the intervention of de Palacio. "It is a heavily bureaucratic, formal process, but for the moment we should be optimistic rather than pessimistic because of the new blood she has injected into the proceedings and her personal commitment to this," said Pogorelov.
One tricky issue to be resolved is privatization. The British government has encountered stiff opposition to its plans to privatize its National Air Traffic Services, largely because of concerns about safety. Meanwhile, French ATC employees wrought havoc on European schedules in late June with a one-day strike because they believe Palacio's plans will lead to privatization and threaten their jobs. The U.K.'s government and airlines, on the other hand, claim privatization will give European ATC the crucial efficiencies it needs but the AUC believes this is a divisive and dogmatic attitude.
"For other European states, privatization is anathema and they see it as a basic national function," said Evans. "We, therefore, see this question as a slowing down of the process.