Consultation for increasing the efficiency of European air transport and Hungarian air navigation

A professional forum was held in Budapest with the participation of pilots from four international airlines – Austrian Airlines, Emirates, Ryanair and WizzAir –, air navigation and technological experts, as well as flight security and navigation specialists. Upon HungaroControl’s initiative, key stakeholders of the air transport sector met for the second time to jointly analyse issues related to increasing flight safety, the improvement of air navigation services, work processes, and aviation procedures. The findings of this year’s two-day forum facilitate both the intensification of communication between pilots and air traffic controllers, and efficient and cost-saving route design, and thus make aviation more economical and environmentally friendly in the airspace controlled by Hungarian air traffic controllers.

At the second large-scale event organised within the framework of the HungaroControl Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction Programme, air traffic controllers and pilots participating in European civil aviation, as well as flight safety and navigation experts elaborated on the current topics in three working groups. The three main topics of this year’s programme included the actions aimed at the introduction of Free Route, the concept of flight without marked routes, in the spring of 2015; the further improvement of communication between controllers and pilots; and HungaroControl’s SID and STAR procedures, currently under development, alongside landing by continuous descent and takeoff by continuous climb.

HungaroControl launched its service quality and customer satisfaction programme in November 2013 with the first Airlines Workshop and an online survey to assess changes in airspace users’ needs. The five hundred pilots who participated in the survey in the past two years confirmed in 2013 as well as in 2014 that HungaroControl’s service quality is rated 90 percent. Awareness of the HungaroControl brand has nearly doubled in 2014. Among the 18 airlines participating in the surveys, key respondents include the pilots of Air Berlin, Air Serbia, British Airways, Emirates Airlines, Etihad Airways, Lufthansa, Ryanair, Tarom, Turkish Airlines and WizzAir.