'Single European Sky' cleared for take off

More efficient air traffic management should counteract expected growth in emissions

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“Today’s European airspace is like a big jigsaw puzzle in which each country has its own piece, but unfortunately, not all the pieces fit together. This leads to detours, waiting times, and unnecessary costs.”

-Johan Danielsson, MEP

Fly within Europe and you will encounter an invisible patchwork of sovereign skies, each controlled by 43 individual air traffic control agencies. In contrast, the US, Canada, and Australia, each with a land mass around double that of Europe, rely on just the one agency to direct flights over their airspace.

You may not be able to see it, but that tangled mess results in delays, longer journeys, higher fares, more fuel burn, and higher emissions.

Reforming Europe’s patchwork airspace was first proposed in 1999. The Single European Sky (SES) initiative was launched by the European Commission in response to severe flight delays in the late 1990’s with the goal of modernising air traffic management across Europe.

However, reluctance among individual member states to give up sovereignty of their national airspace to a European body stalled progress in implementing SES. Attempts to reform the SES framework in 2005 and then again in 2013 failed to make any progress. The political impetus to finally sign off the SES received renewed support from politicians looking to keep Europe’s Green Deal alive.

The SES framework was finally approved by the European Parliament in late October. Although some provisions will be implemented in law almost immediately, others such as independence of the national supervisory authority are expected to take a couple of years. Either way it will take a few years yet before aircraft operators are able to take a more direct path from A to B across Europe’s airspace.¹

The agreement is important for Europe’s airlines who will have to bear an increasing share of the cost of their carbon emissions over the next few years. Free allowances for airline operators will be phased out completely by 2026; starting with 25% in 2024, 50% in 2025 and 100% from 2026.