Slow Single European Sky implementation costs EUR 20B
The Director-General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Tony Tyler said progress to achieve Single European Sky (SES) has been frustratingly slow.
Tyler made the disclosure today at the European Aviation Club in Brussels, Belgium. He noted that over those four years, failure to achieve SES has cost European competitiveness at least EUR 20 billion, lamenting that the environment has suffered many millions of tonnes of unnecessary carbon emissions.
His words, “We cannot change the past but we have a duty to shape the future. With that in mind, IATA commissioned a study on opportunities that airspace modernization would bring. Achieving the Single European Sky would make Europe a more prosperous place. If we look ahead to 2035, the boost to GDP would be EUR 245 billion in that year alone.”
The IATA chief stated that the impact of that on European lives would be significant, stressing that the EUR 245 billion would come from two sources. Aside that, he said a million extra jobs would account for EUR 64 billion. With improved productivity translating to a further EUR180 billion in new GDP. That, he, reiterated comes from time saved, more connectivity options and lower costs from improved efficiency.
He equally noted that the potential impact on quality of employment in high value generating industries is particularly impressive.
With airspace modernization, he said, “we can expect employment in knowledge-intensive sectors to grow 1.3 per cent faster in 2035 than otherwise. That would lead to faster annual growth for trade in services, increased R&D expenditure and more patent applications.”
“My message is that Europe will be a more prosperous place if we can achieve SES. The Commission clearly understands that. The stumbling blocks are the individual member states that are holding Europe to ransom with a misguided perception of what is in their national interest.”
The hope is that EUR 245 billion is a hard number to ignore. And I wish my IATA successor—Alexandre de Juniac—extreme stamina in reminding member states of what is at stake when they pander to self-interested, highly-compensated air traffic controllers. For too long they have isolated themselves from change—and the European economy can ill-afford to continue to pay the price.”
“Given that we are in Brussels where the controllers continue to thumb their noses at the efforts of everyone else to recover from last month’s terrorist attacks, I want to make one further point,” he added.
It’s time to find a way to mitigate the devastating effects of ATC strikes. Let controllers strike if they want to, but we need to develop contingency arrangements that guarantee service continuity. When Belgian controllers suddenly and simultaneously all feel too ill to work there is no technical reason why other European ANSPs couldn’t do the job for them–with a little advance planning.
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