Flight travel about to get cheaper in Europe? All about the Single Sky Initiative

The Single European Sky is a European Commission initiative by which the design, management and regulation of airspace will be coordinated throughout the European Union (ECAA area). European air space is some of the busiest in the world, and the current system of air traffic management suffers from several inefficiencies.

The European Union launched the Single European Sky initiative in the late 1990s to remove national boundaries in the sky, enabling planes to take more direct routes and making air travel safer, greener and more competitive.

However, progress on this project has proved very slow. MEPs are currently looking at plans to improve implementation, according to a press release issued by the European Parliament.

A first package of measures called SES1 was adopted in 2004, but as it did not produce the desired results, an updated version known as SES2 was initiated in 2009. The current SES2+ proposal is intended to accelerate the reform of air navigation services as there are still significant delays in the implementation.

The new proposal was approved by the Transport Committe on January 30 and will be submitted to the European Parliament.

The SES 2+ proposal deals with two major issues:

The insufficient efficiency of air navigation: removing national boundaries will enable the creation of shorter routes, thus reducing fuel consumption. The organisational and budgetary separation of national supervisory authorities from the air traffic control organisations will improve both safety and oversight.

Fragmented air traffic management: the current 28 national air traffic blocks will be replaced by nine regional ones that have already been created but are not fully operational yet. The SES 2+ will also make the target setting more independent, transparent and enforceable to improve the performance.

It will have to be approved by the Parliament and member states before it can enter into law. The plenary vote has been scheduled for March.