Malta ‘fully committed’ to implementation of common airspace management

Malta is fully committed to the implementation of the common European airspace management, the transport ministry said.  

Yesterday, the European Commission 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.

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.

In reaction to the announcement, the transport ministry insisted that Malta is fully committed to the implementation of the Single European Sky and pointed out that it has been an active member throughout the Definition Phase and 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 ministry said.

Moreover, it said that the Commission’s concerns regarding the fragmentation of airspace along national borders in air traffic management do not apply to Malta since all of Malta’s FIR boundaries lie in international airspace.

It added that 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.”