The Ministry for Transport and Infrastructure refers to the European Commission’s request to the Maltese Government with regard to Regulation (EC) No 550/2004 and Regulation (EC) No 549/2004 on common airspace management.

The Commission’s letter concerns the implementation of functional airspace blocks, where these functional airspace blocks are established regardless of State boundaries and where the provision of air navigation services is optimised. Action by the Commission is being taken against all State Parties to the Blue Med FAB State Level Agreement, that is, Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Malta.

Malta is fully committed to the implementation of the Single European Sky and has been an active member throughout the Definition Phase and now in the Implementation Phase of the BLUE MED Functional Airspace Block.

Following the signature and ratification of the BLUE MED FAB State Level Agreement, Malta, together with the other signatory States, continues to take joint initiatives in order to continue to realise the FAB concept in the South Eastern Mediterranean where the four Flight Information Regions of the four States concerned cover large areas of international waters. The Commission’s concerns regarding the fragmentation of airspace along national borders in air traffic management does not apply to Malta since all of Malta’s FIR boundaries lie in international airspace.

Malta is pursuing optimisation in the technical and operational areas to improve the technology and quality of services through the implementation of projects listed in the BLUE MED FAB Implementation Programme. It is however to be noted that, in terms of capacity, air traffic neither suffers from any delays nor is it expected to in future. Likewise, as far as service costs are concerned the Maltese air traffic services provider already has one of the lowest en route service unit rates for the past few years, which situation is not expected to change substantially in the future.

Malta therefore continues to affirm its ongoing commitment to tangibly contribute to the realisation of an efficient and effective FAB.