EU hoping ash crisis will lead to more harmonised European airspace
By Honor Mahony
The European Commission is hoping that the travel chaos caused by the Icelandic ash cloud will spur member states to agree to a European air supervisor who can issue binding recommendations to national air controllers.
Last Wednesday's eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano exposed the shortcomings of having 27 autonomous airspaces able to make unilateral decisions to introduce flying bans, in this case it was the UK taking the lead.
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As the crisis unfolded and thousands of European passengers were left stranded in airports within and beyond Europe, it was only on Monday - four days after the flight bans were imposed - that member-state technical experts met, followed by a meeting of transport ministers in the evening. There it was concluded that the virtual total air ban for civilian flights put in place by several member states was an exaggerated response.
The get-togethers only occurred after the European Commission stepped in to provide some sort of direction. Until then, the response largely fell to Eurocontrol, an intergovernmental agency covering 38 countries, that pools air route information based on data from national air traffic controllers.
With airlines furious at the economic cost of the extensive flying bans, which have had knock-on effects on several other areas including retail outlets in airports and food imports, the commission is hoping to capitalise on the mood to create a stronger European presence.
"There is simply not enough Europe here," said EU transport spokesperson Helen Kearns on Wednesday (21 April) noting that there were "different responses to the same advice."
A first package on creating a more harmonised approach to the EU's skies came into place in 2004. In December last year, it was updated to help reduce some of the economic and environmental costs of having 27 national airspaces - each flight in the EU is a minimum 50km longer than it needs to be as flight routes are determined by national authorities often according to defence and security priorities.
But the precise details of the updated package, due to come into force in 2012, are still to be agreed. On back of the ash crisis and with the threat of more volcanic erruptions on Iceland to come, the commission is now pushing for a "European network manager" or air supervisor to be able to issue binding recommendations to national authorities.
This manager would organise flight routes, for example saying how best a pilot should fly from Schipol airport in the Netherlands to Rome.
A transport official from the European Commission said the power to issue binding recommendations would not impinge on member states' sovereignty over their airspace as the advice could be ignored. But a fine could be issued if it is then proven that ignoring the recommendation led to adverse consequences.
According to Ms Kearns, the closer European co-ordination envisioned under the so-called Single European Sky initiative would have made "an enormous difference" in the current crisis with a decision on the flight bans and the safety of European airspace likely to have been made as early as last Friday, rather than three days later on Monday.
Speaking about the 2012 implementation date, Ms Kearns said: "The political question now is can we go further faster."
The updated package is also supposed to double the capacity of the European network by 2020 and reduce CO2 emissions by 10 percent per flight.
Aside from the trying to ensure a pan-European approach to EU skies as quickly as possible, the ash crisis has also raised other questions such as what is the amount of ash in the air needed to trigger a flight ban, a point of confusion over recent days.
"I am quite sure that will be a political priority," said Ms Kearns, with EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas due to present his thoughts on the consequences of the current transport crisis next Tuesday.