25 February 2025: Over the past two summers, ERA airlines have suffered the worst air traffic delays in nearly two decades, with staffing shortages, capacity constraints and weather-related disruptions affecting multiple area control centres (ACCs) across Europe.

During the core summer months (June–August) in 2023, EUROCONTROL recorded nearly 11.5 million minutes of Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) delays across the European network.

The situation deteriorated further in last year. In June, ATFM delays reached 4.7 million minutes – 1.1 million more than in June 2023. By July 2024, delays had surged to nearly 7 million minutes, marking a 64% increase from the previous year.

With air traffic in the EUROCONTROL area projected to grow by 5.2% this year, and initial Network Manager forecasts indicating another challenging summer, stakeholders met twice last week to agree on additional mitigation measures.

Among Europe's ACCs, 40% plan to increase capacity compared to last year – including Budapest, Karlsruhe, Zagreb, and Marseille, which were among the top delay generators in 2024. While these increases are welcomed, the rise in traffic is likely to offset significant performance improvements. Meanwhile, 41% of ACCs will maintain their current sector openings and 19% are expected to reduce them.

During the Network Directors of Operations (NDOP) ad hoc meeting on 18 February, ACCs expected to exceed network capacity requirements were asked to provide updates.

Additionally, on 20 February, a technical meeting was held to review NM RAD measures aimed at managing demand/capacity imbalances and complexity issues throughout the season. The discussion also covered strategic scenarios designed to address imbalances, including weather-related disruptions, applied either the day before or on the day of operations.

In the top right corner, you can find the draft minutes from the NDOP meeting, which provide further details on the main ACCs impacted, as well as the full list of agreed measures and scenarios (access is restricted to members only).

ERA will once again participate in weekly NDOP co-ordination calls and members are invited to contact us with their main trending issues which will be fed back to the Network Manager and associated ACCs and airports.

A further briefing can be expected during the ERA Operations Group meeting which will be held online at the end of April. Registrations will open shortly.