Aviation: Progress reports show key targets for European air traffic management "at risk"

Brussels, 25 November 2011. Progress reports published  on the Single European Sky – far-reaching proposals to put in place a pan-European air traffic management system by 2030 – "set alarm bells ringing." "There is a genuine risk that we will lag behind and find ourselves unable to satisfy the rising demands of air travel, which is set to nearly double by 2030", said European Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas, responsible for transport.

"2012 is a make or break year for the Single European Sky and there is a lot at stake. Despite efforts that have been made, the Commission's "traffic light" assessment shows a large majority of Member States in the orange or red zones and at risk of not meeting critical targets for 2012" (see "traffic light" tables attached).

2012 is a critical year for the Single European Sky – there are four key deliverables:

the performance scheme, setting key air traffic management (ATM) targets (to start early in 2012);

the nine "functional airspace blocks" (to be operational by end-2012);

the ATM network manager (already designated as Eurocontrol);

the launch of the deployment phase of SESAR, the technological arm of the Single European Sky (from 2014), moving from the R&D phase to the rollout of new equipment and technology.

The "traffic light" assessments published today by the Commission – based on two progress reports – highlight serious cause for concern in relation to two major elements which go to the heart of the Single European Sky project: the performance scheme and the functional airspace blocks

1. On the performance scheme:

The result: Only 5 out of 27 Member States (Belgium, Denmark, Lithuania, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) get a "green light" and are on track to meet both targets (for cost and capacity/delays) for the period 2012–14. The Commission has today issued recommendations asking Member States to revise these targets. If necessary the Commission could adopt a binding decision requesting the Member State(s) concerned to implement specific corrective measures, although a short time remains available for the targets to be met without recourse to this action.

Existing plans by Member States would fail to meet the EU-wide capacity target of 0.5 minute delay per flight in 2014. If this target were achieved, some €920 million would be saved over 2012–14 due to fewer and shorter delays.

In addition, national performance plans would miss the EU-wide target for ATM cost efficiency by 2.4% in 2014. This would have a a major impact, both on airspace users and on the credibility of the Single European Sky. To meet the target, additional measures are needed to achieve a €250 million saving over the entire three-year reference period (2012–14).

2. On the functional airspace blocks (FABs)
The result: All FAB blocks, except for one, the Danish/Swedish FAB, are in the orange or red zone and give serious cause for concern. The Commission is urging Member States to step up their actions. Failure to take measures at national level could oblige the Commission to re-open the SES legislative packages to introduce a more radical solution

.

For detailed information on the two progress reports, performance targets and FABs see: MEMO/11/831.

Key Facts and figures: the Single European Sky

European skies and airports risk saturation. Without substantial investment to modernise Europe's air traffic management system (the Single European Sky), our skies and airports will be jam-packed.

Already there are 1.4 billion passengers a year in 440 airports.

That's 26 000 flights a day criss-crossing the European sky.

Each year there are 10 million flights; and that is growing by up to 5% each year.

So 16.9 million flights per year in 20 years' time – that means in 2030 as many flights will cross Europe as there are inhabitants of Beijing.

The challenge – flights that are smooth, safe and on time.

Problem: the air traffic management system is archaic; some of the basic technologies used date from the 1950s.

Solution: modernisation of Europe's airspace to create a pan-European air traffic management (ATM) system, modernising a fragmented patchwork of 27 national airspaces, 

a) tripling the airspace capacity,

b) improving safety tenfold,

c) reducing environmental impact by 10%,

d) reducing air traffic management costs by 50%.

Single European Sky implemention – the European Commission, Member States EUROCONTROL, SESAR and the aviation sector.

ANNEX 1

European Commission "Traffic light assessment" of progress on functional airspace blocks

Target: All 9 FABs to be fully operational by end 2012.

Result: All FABs in orange or red zones except for one (Denmark/Sweden)

 ANNEX 2

European Commission "traffic light assessment" of Member State performance plans for ATM cost and capacity (delays)

Target: Performance scheme meeting EU-wide targets to start early 2012.

Result: Only 5 Member States have submitted performance plans which would enable the EU wide targets to be met. All others are in the orange or red zones.

Contacts :
Helen Kearns (+32 2 298 76 38)
Dale Kidd (+32 2 295 74 61)

Single European Sky

A Decade Later: A Call for Transportation Security Administration Reform

November 16, 2011. Washington, DC–U.S. House Congressional leaders released a report today highlighting a decade of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) mismanagement and failures. The report, entitled “A Decade Later: A Call for TSA Reform,” calls for dramatic reform of the nation’s bloated transportation security agency.

“Congress created TSA ten years ago to be a lean, risk-based, adaptive agency, responsible for analyzing intelligence, setting security standards, and overseeing the nation’s transportation security structure. Unfortunately, TSA has lost its way,” said U.S. Rep. John L. Mica (R-FL), Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “TSA has strayed from its security mission and mushroomed into a top-heavy bureaucracy that includes 3,986 headquarters staff, making $103,852 per year on average, and 9,656 administrators in the field. Currently, TSA has 65,000 employees. Unfortunately, over the past ten years, the agency has spent $57 billion on numerous operational and technology failures.

“While we are safer today than we were ten years ago, this is largely thanks to the vigilance of American citizens and passengers, the actions of flight crews and armed pilots, the addition of hardened cockpit doors, and the assistance of foreign intelligence agencies,” Mica continued. “After ten years, we cannot continue to rely on luck. It is time for reform. TSA must become the kind of agency it was intended to be – a thinking, risk-based, flexible agency that analyzes risks, sets security standards and audits security performance. “The report is being provided to Congress and there are plans to introduce legislation to improve this critical security agency. We look forward to working with Members of Congress and the committees of jurisdiction to achieve much needed reforms.”

“TSA was envisioned and sold to the American people as a proactive agency that would strategically deploy the latest technology and cutting-edge tactics to protect travelers,” said U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “Despite these high ambitions, the agency has become a backwards-looking dinosaur that seeks employees through pizza box advertising and struggles to detect actual terrorist threats. TSA needs a vision and purpose that goes beyond throwing expensive equipment and invasive searches at passengers who do not pose a security threat.”

“Despite TSA’s massive bureaucracy, reports indicate that more than 25,000 security breaches have occurred in U.S. airports since 2001,” said U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, M.D. (R-GA), Chairman of the Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, and a member of the House Homeland Security Committee. “The agency as a whole has been a colossal disappointment; the one thing it has been successful at is violating the rights of the American people. Instead of worrying about ‘political correctness’, TSA should be putting our resources into intelligence and technologies that could be more effective when it comes to catching highly elusive and dangerous terrorists. We should know about terrorist attacks before they materialize on U.S. soil, and I have yet to see that kind of progress come out of TSA.”

“Terrorism is a global problem and we should continue to consider and learn what other countries are doing to effectively safeguard the public and stop terrorism,” said U.S. Rep. Tom Petri (R-WI), Chairman of the Aviation Subcommittee of the House Transportation Committee. “We need to focus more on identifying and thwarting terrorists rather than spending vast resources on programs that simply inconvenience the travelling public who are not a threat.”

“This report highlights what we have known for years – that TSA is misguided, overly bureaucratic, and mismanaged,” said U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations of the House Oversight Committee. “It invests in tomorrow’s technology to fight yesterday’s threats and wastes billions of taxpayer dollars in the process. It’s time for President Obama and Secretary Napolitano to refocus the troubled agency and get serious about real solutions.”

From the top down, TSA is a troubled agency. TSA and its administrator are buried within the Department of Homeland Security along with 21 other agencies. Turnover in the position of TSA Administrator has been excessive, and too little priority has been placed on naming a new administrator when the position has become vacant.

The list of TSA operational failures has grown over the last ten years, and the agency has expended a significant amount of taxpayer resources in too many efforts that have provided little or no security benefits. Earlier this year the agency undermined a successful – and congressionally mandated – program to allow airports to opt out of the all-federal passenger screening model in favor of a model in which qualified private contractors conduct screening under TSA standards and oversight. TSA’s expenditure of a quarter of a billion in taxpayer dollars resulted in a poorly designed, poorly tested, and poorly performing behavior detection program, known as SPOT. The agency has also failed to successfully implement a long-delayed Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program at many of the nation’s ports.

TSA personnel failures include its inability to retain its workforce, high training costs for replacements, and decisions to recruit employees with ads on pizza boxes and discount gas pumps.

The agency has also failed to effectively deploy technology. Since 2001, TSA has obligated over $8 billion on screening technology, a significant portion of which has been useless, unused, discarded, poorly deployed, or sitting idle because of a lack of trained personnel.

Despite great expenditures, TSA’s record of stopping terrorist plots is dismal. Classified evaluations of security performance continue to reveal concerning results. For example, the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, the Times Square bomber, and the toner cartridge bomb plot were not thwarted by TSA, but by flight crews and passengers, or by foreign intelligence agencies.

The complete report “A Decade Later: A Call for TSA Reform,” including a review of TSA operations over the last decade and a list of recommendations to improve the agency, can be found by clicking here. The report was prepared by the majority staff of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“After countless, expensive detours, it is time for TSA to refocus its mission as an oversight agency based on risk and common sense security protocols,” Mica added.

A Decade Later: A Call for Transportation Security Administration Reform

All About Airports

Airports come in all shapes and sizes and can provide pilots with opportunities for both education and enjoyment at any level. This is the focus of the November/December 2011 issue of FAA Safety Briefing, which takes an in-depth look at the nation’s wide array of public-use airports. Articles highlight the benefits of exploring new places to land as well as help raise awareness of runway safety and wildlife hazards.

In this issue you can also read about what goes in to building an instrument approach, learn more about deciphering airport sign language, and appreciate the lessons learned from a runway incursion. In addition, the issue’s Nuts, Bolts, and Electrons department takes a look at some changes on what it means to be actively engaged for an aviation maintenance technician with inspection authorization (IA). Be sure to check out all this issue has to offer!

FAA Safety Briefing

Venturing Further A Field (PDF)

How a Runway Earns its Stripes (PDF)

Splat (PDF)

It Could Happen to Anyone (PDF)