Infringement procedures over common airspace management

The European Commission has formally requested Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and the United Kingdom – members of six different Functional

Airspace Blocks (FABs) – to improve their FABs, a common airspace arranged around  traffic flows rather than state boundaries.

FABs are a crucial step towards a more efficient, less costly and less  polluting aviation system in Europe, the Commission said.

All EU member states should have implemented their FABs by December 4, 2012 according to Regulation (EC) No 550/2004.

The FAB between Italy, Greece,  Cyprus, and Malta (BLUEMED FAB) is still being formally established, whilst the State Agreements establishing the FAB between Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia (FABCE), the FAB between Bulgaria and Romania (DANUBE FAB), the FAB between Lithuania and Poland (BALTIC FAB), and the FAB between Spain and Portugal (SOUTHWEST FAB), and the UK/IRELAND FAB have come into force.

The Commission said that the lack of progress on FABs is holding back the full implementation of the EU's Single European Sky, which in turn generates inefficiencies in the entire European Air Traffic Management in the range of some 30-40% of total air navigation costs and charges levied in Europe.

This represents a loss of some €5 billion annually. Additionally, planned safety enhancements in the Single European Sky are negatively impacted.