EUROCONTROL Performance Review Commission issues its latest ATM Cost-Effectiveness Benchmarking Report

The EUROCONTROL Performance Review Commission (PRC) has published its fifteenth ATM Cost-Effectiveness (ACE) Benchmarking Report. It analyses the cost-effectiveness and productivity of 38 European Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) in 2015, the latest year for which actual financial data are available, based on information submitted in July 2016.

The ACE Report also examines changes in ANSP cost-effectiveness over 2010-2015 with a strong focus on the underlying performance drivers such as Air Traffic Controllers’ productivity, employment costs and support costs. It also provides an outlook of the performance planned over the five year cycle covering 2016-2020.

At system level, traffic rose faster (+1.7%) than ATM/CNS provision costs (+0.5%), leading to a decrease in unit ATM/CNS provision costs (-1.2%) compared to 2014. However, this improvement in cost-effectiveness was outweighed by a significant increase in ATFM delays. As a result, unit economic costs increased in 2015 (+3.2%), breaking a trend of 4 years of consecutive decreases.

“ The ACE Report 2015 contains a wealth of factual information on the main reasons for the significant increase in ATFM delays observed in 2015 at Pan-European system level and also at ANSP level. It is important that ANSPs continue to manage their costs carefully while, at the same time, providing sufficient ATC capacity to minimise delays to the travelling public. The ACE benchmarking analysis is of particular interest to aviation managers, policy makers, regulators and NSAs given the strong policy emphasis on enhancing overall performance, and in particular cost-effectiveness,” says Mr Ralph Riedle, PRC Chairman.

Mr Riedle added that, in response to stakeholders’ requests, the PRC is working to develop a website where high-level ACE data will be published online. In addition, it is planned to publish high-level preliminary ACE 2016 data in December 2017. The PRC’s objective is to facilitate easier access to high-level ACE data and to make the preliminary data available earlier. 

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