THE creation of a unified European air space is seriously off track, potentially requiring the European Union to use sanctions to force compliance from member states, European Commissioner for Transport Siim Kallas said in Cyprus yesterday.
A unified air space would save €5 billion in costs that are currently passed on to the travelling public.
Although the European Union dissolved customs borders and passport controls for much of the continent years ago, control of the skies overhead remains fragmented between nations.
"We have fallen seriously behind in our original ambitions. After more than 10 years, the core problems remain the same," Kallas told a conference in Limassol.
"At this stage, it looks like infringements may well be necessary," Kallas said.
The Single European Sky (SES) II package is an EU plan to scale down from 27 national airspaces to nine regional blocks by December, with the ultimate aim of one single air control system.
But countries have been slow to dismantle domestic air traffic monopolies in order to form the regional blocks, and the EU may launch investigations into sanctioning countries that won't make good on the agreement.
The Commission can force member states to follow EU law through a procedure known as infringement, which begins with a formal demand and can escalate into EU court action and fines.
According to the EU's executive, the European Commission, the patchwork control of Europe's airspace leads to more than €5 billion in extra costs per year that is passed on to passengers.
Air traffic control costs make up 6-12 percent of the cost of an airline ticket.
Kallas said the price paid in the EU for using antiquated 1950's-era systems makes the bloc uncompetitive.
The EU was "a long way off the price in the United States... which already controls the same airspace area with more traffic at half the cost," he said.
Full implementation of the EU single sky plan would triple the amount of capacity for flights and improve safety tenfold, the Commission said.
Due to the national control of airspaces, flights also have to take longer and more inefficient routes, adding an extra 42 km to each flight in Europe.
This in turn results in wasted fuel and increased emissions.
Speaking at the high-level conference ‘Single European Sky: time for action’ in Limassol Kallas remarked: "I have always said that the Single European Sky is my top aviation priority. It is too important to be allowed to fail... There are some signs of change, but overall progress is too slow and too limited. We need to think of other solutions and apply them quickly. There is too much national fragmentation. Promised improvements have not materialised."
With full implementation of the SES, safety will be improved by a factor of ten, airspace capacity will be tripled, the costs of air traffic management will be reduced by 50 per cent, and the impact on the environment will be reduced by 10 per cent.