Avinor prepares for airspace competition

In the March issue of the Avinorpuls magazine, which will be published next week, a lot of coverage is dedicated to the work Avinor has started in order to prepare for a new and competitive reality.
It is the EUs implementation of pan-European airspace (Single European Sky) that is the background for the analyses and studies that Avinor is currently carrying out. By disengaging airspace from national borders, travel times are to drop, delays are to be reduced, capacity is to be increased and greenhouse gas emissions from aviation are to be reduced by 10 percent. Costs related to air navigation services (tower and control centres) are also to be cut.

Considering the number of control centres
In February of this year Avinor adopted a strategy plan for how the company will face the challenges related to air navigation. As a part of the work Avinor has initiated, reducing the number of control centres from three to one is being considered in addition to centralizing approach controls in Norway by 2017.
The EU expectation is that each country will have no more than one control centre. A number of countries have already rationalized their control centres, and by 2017 we need to establish the in-flight service provided from Norway in one control centre. We will have to discuss the location as we go along, Skaar says to Avinorpuls.

Great emphasis on involvement
We will place great emphasis on involving the employees in the process, because although we cannot avoid the major issues, the consequences will be less painful if we can cooperate, says Knut Skaar.  
 
EU's vision is based on the cost per flight being reduced by at least 50 percent, while at the same time capacity can increase by 300 percent. 

Avinor will perform analyses to ensure that changes don't negatively affect safety, the service must be of high quality, the personnel capacity must be adequate and the services must be provided at a competitive price. Environmental performance must also be strengthened.

Across borders
All air navigation service operations in Europe primarily dominate their home markets. The establishment of functional airspace blocks (an airspace block is established through a cluster of countries coming together to agree that the airspace above the countries and routes are to be established independently of the countries making up the block), increased competition for tower services and the increased subcontracting of related services will entail a requirement to not only position air navigation activities in the home market, but also across borders. Avinor has chosen to cooperate on a northern European airspace block.