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The EU has warned that the airline’s delays could be the worst this summer this summer because understaffed air traffic controls could fight strikes, forest fires and high demand.
The EU officials said on Wednesday that the air traffic control system operated on its border due to a lack of employees and the demand for flies after the Covid 19 pandemic.
“Last year we had the worst summer ever in relation to delays and cancellations. This year will be very similar,” said a high -ranking EU official.
The official added around 37,000 flights in Europe on the busiest days in its airspace – the border for the management of air traffic controllers.
In April, Eurocontrol, the airline, said that air traffic rose by 5 percent in 2024 in 2024.
“In nine countries, including France, Germany, Greece and Spain, a lack of flight safety capacity will lead to high delays to deal with traffic demand – some of the region’s most popular tourists.
The problem of tightening is industrial measures, especially in France. Two days of the strikes by the employees of the flight control at French airports via aging devices and the lack of employees last week forced 4,000 flights through the block, said EuroControl. On Thursday alone, the strike cost around € 100 per minute, the organization said.
Air France-Klm, which carries out many flights from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, risked millions of euros in losses associated with the disorder, said French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot.
Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the EU’s transport officer, said that the block was operated on because of the war war in Ukraine with a reduced airspace, which, in addition to the lack of air control, “threaten to burden our aviation network and to frustrate passengers”.
With airports “bustle more than ever”, “Europe cannot afford chaos in heaven,” he said.
Steve Heaby, Managing Director of Jet2 told the investors on Wednesday That the strikes had caused “many concerned customers”, even though the airline had continued to fly.
Forest fires were also a leading problem. Europe is one of the regions that are most frequently exposed to the effects of climate change. Forest fires force the temporary closure of Marseille Airport on Tuesday. In Greece, tourist attractions such as the acropolis were also closed due to the extreme heat.
The senior official said that the effects of climate change were “a big problem. For the future we see much more extreme weather events”, many of which were “quite dangerous for aviation”.
Another main cause of the delays is the lack of flight safety staff. Before a meeting in June, Tzitzikostas sent the EU transport ministers a letter in which they were asked to ensure that air traffic controls “actually deliver the capacity that they officially promised, and use flight regulations at the locations and in the timelines that they need most”.
Officials said that some pilots can receive their flight licenses in one year, in some parts of Europe the air traffic control staff have to carry out five years of training and that the Commission tried to work with aviation security agencies in order to revise these rules.
Rafael Schvartzman, Vice President for Europe at the International Air Transport Association, said that the constantly increasing delays were “unacceptable”. “The gap between goals and reality approaches the fantasy level, and there is no penalties for this continued evil failure,” he said.
The airlines also said that Brussels should complete the “individual European sky”, an initiative that enables the airlines to fly into the block to bring the most direct routes to their goals instead of force them to take distractions because of fragmented air traffic control.
“If you from London, Stand State State to Cyprus, fly, fly with a series of air points in the sky. It is not a straight line at all … but the EU was frustratingly slow,” said a person who was familiar with the thinking of a large tour operator.
