In the early 1990s, EU policy in the air transport sector was among the most successful of its kind, leading over the years to a drastic fall in prices and an unprecedented level of connectivity, all done without challenging the safety of EU flights.
The aviation sector became an integral part of the single market and an essential element for mobility across Europe. In this context, the single European sky (SES) was an ambitious and technical initiative: achieving a single European air traffic management system.
SES was designed to tackle the pre-identified challenges of large air traffic growth, while maintaining safety of operations at all times and delivering the most cost-efficient and environmentally-friendly conditions for air traffic management.
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Pursuing the logic of the single market over airspace, SES was built on the idea that de-fragmenting European airspace would reduce delays and costs, thereby improving efficiency in airspace management. Twelve years and one revision later, the assessment of the SES implementation speaks for itself.
The challenges for the aviation sector, as identified by the European Commission in its communication on an aviation strategy for Europe, remain the same as when SES was first established: coping with air traffic growth and an expected capacity crunch, while delivering on safety and environmental objectives.
However, rather than pointing to the failure of SES or the updated SES II per se, it is more appropriate to put the blame on our own shortcomings in delivering such initiatives.
Today, the situation is that while the proposed revision, SES II+, is blocked in Council and cannot provide the necessary updates for SES, member states are not implementing the first packages, the most obvious example being the incomplete functional airspace blocks, where, in certain cases, member states have not been providing the infrastructure required for the initiative's proper functioning.
In this respect, the single European sky ATM research (SESAR) project, the technological pillar of SES, perfectly illustrates the deficiencies found in EU and national policies in the air sector. So far, SESAR has proved successful and has entered into its second phase, deployment.
The full deployment of SESAR would be highly beneficial to the ATM management of EU airspace, and therefore SES. The problem, however, is that without SES, SESAR cannot deliver on its capabilities, creating a cycle of unproductivity.
Today, the European aviation sector lacks a clear vision. What was once a genuine ambition to deliver an EU perspective for the aviation sector, aimed at broadening travel opportunities for citizens and businesses alike, now reflects the paralysing "wait-and-see" stance, whereby we cross our fingers in the hope of forever maintaining the weak equilibrium established between national and EU competencies.
In reality, the fragmentation that has been left in EU airspace costs us €5bn a year, diverting the allocation of those funds away from investments in airspace projects, and consequently, preventing positive results being delivered for the sector.
Consequently, the fragmentation of EU airspace represents an unaffordable waste of funds. The problem, however, goes far beyond SES, but rather concerns the sector as a whole, e.g. the financing of infrastructures: we allowed for public funds to finance airports that were unsustainable, largely because they were unnecessary, and today, we continue to invest billions of euros to maintain said airports as they are, rather than looking for better alternatives.
Recently, the Commission has proposed an aviation strategy for Europe. However, this is only a starting point and we must look even further into the future, and as far as 2050. There is a need to put forward a coordinated, global, comprehensive and ambitious vision for the development of a European aviation strategy, to ensure our investments are coherent with our objectives.
Strengthened territorial cohesion? Let's take a map of the EU and point to the airports to see where connectivity is missing, taking into account all modes of transport and the potential of intermodality in the aim of delivering a resilient network.
Environmental goals? Let's invest in EU industries and promote energy-efficient solutions.
Coming back to SES and its initial objective: Today, one element we are missing is the capacity to mitigate a temporary disruption in air traffic management.
In this regard, we can also begin to think of alternatives: I believe that previously adopted regulations provide grounds for the implementation of what I call the "trans-European motorway of the sky". It does not require creating a new European body to manage airspace, nor does it require member states to shift their competencies to the EU.
The idea is simply to allocate an "EU stamp" over a specific part of airspace, so that, for example, in the case of a local disruption, priority could be given to EU flights already operating, thereby minimising the impact of any disruption.
Daring is all that it takes to move ahead: daring to find alternatives, to re-invent solutions and put forward innovative ideas.