News
IS BIGGER BETTER?
On January 30-31, 18 representatives from Ministries of Transport and Defence, National Supervisory Authorities and Air Navigation Service Providers representing 6 FABs (BALTIC FAB, BLUE MED, DANUBE, DK-SW, FAB CE, FABEC) met in Roma Ciampino, Italy, for the “3rd Inter-FAB Performance Workshop”.
The Inter-FAB coordination for the area of Performance addressed topics such as:
- the European performance scheme and how States and ANSPs deal with it,
- the different FABs’ approaches to the upcoming Reference Period 3 (2020-2024),
- the current process for reviewing Performance Plans,
- the importance of fragmentation affecting ATM performance within the aviation chain,
clearly showing that all FABs have similar issues.
On some subjects, such as the interpretation of ATM cost efficiency within SES, the debate challenged some of the European Commission’s basic assumptions, with the intent to constructively provide the EC with different possible perspectives on the matter according to alternative models of interpretation.
The question about scale efficiency in the ATM industry remains unanswered and is open for further discussion: is there a direct correlation between ANSPs size or complexity and their efficiency? (“Is bigger better?”). The ongoing study on ATM efficiency commissioned by FABEC and BLUE MED, whose findings are going to be presented at the next Inter-FAB Performance Workshop in Vilnius – will pursue this question further.