More and more flights are flying to more destinations, while competition has led to even cheaper prices. It has, however, to be ensured that this

development continues to take place

without jeopardising the industry’s excellent track record,” Competitiveness and Communications Minister Censu Galea said yesterday.

Speaking at the opening of the conference European Sky Network organised in Malta by the European Commission, Mr Galea said that these factors will continue to encourage more people to fly and make business through aviation. The EU proposal of a

“single European sky” is another added value in the attainment of a fully-functioning network facilitating Europe’s economic growth and international competitiveness.

Various participants from national civil aviation authorities, including Malta’s Department of Civil Aviation, together with members of the EU Commission, are in Malta discussing the concept of a Single European Sky.

In 2001, the European Commission adopted proposals for a single European sky, to create a Community regulator for air traffic management within the EU, Norway and Switzerland. It is being proposed that the Community regulator will merge upper European airspace, currently divided into national regions. This airspace will be organised uniformly, with air traffic control areas based on operational efficiency, not national borders. This has no impact on member states’ sovereignty over their airspace, in the same way that harmonisation of land-based transport infrastructures does not lead to a lessening of sovereignty over their territory.

In his address, the minister underlined Malta’s commitment to provide its support for the Commission’s initiative to provide EU member states with an opportunity to discuss various aspects of this matter in an informal manner.

The single European sky concept arose due to the following issues:

European air space is one of the busiest on the planet;

Europe is currently facing its worse delay crisis on record and to an airline, delays mean money;

As air traffic volumes increase relentlessly, and airspace becomes ever more sparse, action has to be taken to address the

situation;

The current system of air traffic management suffers from several problems, which threaten the future of the airline industry. These include inefficient air traffic control boundaries which follow national borders;

Air traffic in Europe is projected to increase by around four per cent a year for the next 15 years, and it is expected that today’s air traffic will have doubled by 2020;

Current systems, with ongoing improvements, should be able to handle this increased load until 2015.

Within this context, Mr Galea said that the air transport industry in Europe requires the provision of extra and more efficient airspace capacity in order to successfully encounter this future growth. At the same time, air transport has to be both safe and economically viable.

The European single sky initiative represents a regulatory approach to solving the issues that affect air transport now and in the future.

Air Traffic Control is a service provided in the general economic interest which has as its primary concern the maintenance of air traffic’s safety. It is therefore not intended to promote competition or privatisation in air traffic control, added Mr Galea.

The Single European Sky will lead to more transparency, improved communication and a more efficient flow and capacity management.

This will benefit both the service providers and the airspace users through lower investment and operating costs, as well as a more efficient utilisation of resources.

The reduction of fragmentation in technical systems and the harmonisation of controller licensing will lead to lower costs both in investment and in the flexible use of the workforce for the service providers and ultimately to a safer environment for airspace users and controllers alike, he said.

Air traffic control will continuously require a sustained effort to improve safety, increase capacity and enhance efficiency. The Single European Sky provides the tools to meet that challenge.

The minister pointed out that there is a wide support for this initiative throughout the European Union.

The regulations were adopted unanimously by the Council of Ministers and by an overwhelming majority in the European Parliament. Adopted by the European Parliament in March 2004 and coming into force in April 2004, a number of mandates for the development of implementation rules have already been forwarded by the European Commission.

This shows that there is widespread understanding and agreement that the problems of safety, capacity and efficiency are ones that can no longer be resolved solely by national measures, but demand a broader European perspective and common action by all the countries of the now enlarged European family.