Air Traffic Control (ATC) is a set of measures intended to regulate the movement of aircraft. The main function of ATC is ensuring a safe flow of planes, helicopters, and other vehicles using airfoil. Flying aircraft is a complicated activity with numerous factors involved. As traveling by plane becomes more popular, this industry is expected to grow in the future. It means that the abundance of vehicles will create traffic challenges. Therefore, managing it requires countries to adopt a set of policies regulating aircraft movement.
Europe and North America are two regions housing multiple airline companies. This report will cover EUROCONTROL (European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation) and FAA/ATO (CONUS) areas of air traffic. Both regions are rich in daily flights, routes, and airports. Combined together, they have more than 22 percent of general aviation (Eurocontrol & FAA, 2019, p. 3-4). Subsequently, there is a requirement for strict policies as they concern millions of people. The essence of air traffic control is similar in both areas, yet the unique industry standards predetermine the differences in practice.
Airspace management is complex and comprised of numerous factors. First, the overall management will be compared, particularly how air traffic is managed in each region and what its practical implications are. Second, airport capacity will be analyzed, which allows estimating how many planes an airport can host and how many flights can be dispatched. Third, contrasting the operational service quality will show which area suffers from flight delays and more. Finally, comparing what each area views as the primary air traffic management (ATM) factor will showcase their priorities in the present and future practices.
Overall Regulation
The most evident distinction between the areas is the manner of airspace management. The United States is a single entity, thus it has a single separate agency – the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates ATC and flight dispatches (Air Traffic Organization, 2017). The US has a single service provider – the Air Traffic Organization. It is labeled as the operational arm of the FAA, yet it does not have federal authority. Therefore, there is a possibility of states overruling FAA regulations (Wilson, 2018). As a result, the FAA area is not as stable and unified as it might appear at first glance.
A similar structure can be observed in the European Union, which is a regional organization but not a country itself. EUROCONTROL encompasses numerous states, some of which are not members of the European Union (Di Gravio et al., 2016). Therefore, each country manages airspace without a presiding body. It should be noted that there is an initiative underway that aims to create a European Route Network Design, which would regulate international air traffic and the order of flight dispatches on a supranational level (Eurocontrol & FAA, 2019). However, this does not make EUROCONTROL an area with the same rules for all states.
Taking the specifics of air traffic management of both areas into consideration, it should be stated that lack of legally equal standards is a common feature of both regions. In practice, the provider differences mean a different number of ATC units and varying flight dispatch procedures. Currently, there are “20 Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCC) in the U.S. CONUS compared to 62 ACCs in Europe” (Eurocontrol & FAA, 2019, p. 14). Excessive fragmentation of ATC units in Europe has a negative impact on Air Traffic Management performance and the quality of flight dispatches (Markiewicz, 2019). Therefore, the US area is more stable and safe than EUROCONTROL.
Declared Airport Capacity
Another standard to be compared is the number of slots available for arriving aircraft at an airport. Every time a plane lands, it occupies a slot until it is ready to depart. Dray (2020) defines a slot as a “take-off or landing right at an airport in a specified time period” (p. 2). The amount of time an aircraft spends in an airport depends on many factors, such as current weather conditions, the number of concurrent arrivals, and the slot controlling policy. Slot control is a practice of early scheduling of permissions to land, which can prevent an airline company from conducting an urgent flight.
European airports have strict slot control regulation, which allows them to lighten everyday aircraft load. The scheduling season incorporates around six months, meaning that all arrivals are planned at least half a year in advance (Zografos et al., 2017). This implies that the only case when an unscheduled arrival can happen is when a plane does not occupy its slot for some reason (Du et al., 2018). Slot control policy is beneficial in terms of preventing excessive traffic, but sacrifices flexibility when the need arises to host and dispatch multiple planes.
The US airports have an opposite policy regarding the allocation of slots. The decisions concerning the land permissions are made based “on the number of operations scheduled, available runway configuration, and weather, among other considerations” (Eurocontrol & FAA. 2019, p. 27). This means that US airports are more flexible in terms of managing urgent flights (Lim & Karanki, 2020). The reason why FAA allows them not to plan in advance lies in high peak arrival capacity. American airports usually have three or four runways, while European airports are restricted to one or two runways (Eurocontrol & FAA, 2019). However, the lack of slot controls leads to congestion, which can itself limit airport capacity since the flights are not dispatched on time.
Operational Service Quality
One more comparison point covers the performance of US and European airports. Specifically, arrival punctuality, delays, and the reasons for them will be analyzed. The ultimate goal of air traffic control is an accurate on-time performance (Corver & Grote, 2016). Aside from objective factors such as weather conditions, which cannot be influenced by airport regulations, the responsibility for the service quality is placed on airport management. The more nuances are considered, the better the resulting air traffic data will be. The principal factor influencing the time a plane spends in an airport is service (Neumann, 2019). The quicker an aircraft is subjected to maintenance, the sooner it will be able to depart. At this point, airport congestion can decapitate airports performing maintenance on time.
This is especially prominent in the US, where there is no slot control regulation, and traffic load can change within days. In response to the incoming urgent arrivals, “most of the US airports implement a first-come first-served protocol when handling flights” (Campanelli et al., 2016, p. 17). This formula creates delays for other planes that await service. Airports do employ strategies of nominal, arrival, and partial arrival priorities, which “decrease overall delays with a significant reduction in arrival delays” (Park et al., 2018, p. 509). Nevertheless, this approach is not effective when managing traffic at moments of peak arrival, thus leading to low operational service quality.
In contrast, European airports follow the slot control policy, which enables them to provide plane maintenance on time. This does not imply that there are no delays, as some flights can be cancelled and vehicles may occupy slots longer than expected. Still, when compared with the US, airport congestion in Europe is more balanced (Gillen et al., 2016). Therefore, European airports have more time and resources available to serve planes awaiting flight dispatch because the tools have been reserved specifically for them in accordance with the schedule.
ATM Performance
Finally, both EUROCONTROL and FAA have unique practices relating to the measurement of Air Traffic Management performance. Whereas the previous comparison delved into the specifics of the quality of service, this analysis evaluates how effective the overall management is and what approaches to estimations each area employs. The International Civil Aviation Organization is an agency of the United Nations regulating rules of international air navigation (ICAO). It outlays eleven key performance areas (KPAs), the most prevalent of which is air traffic flow management , but it also covers flight dispatches (Cook et al., 2017). Both EUROCONTROL and FAA are obliged to follow ICAO’s KPAs.
The European system of air traffic management has introduced a new program meant to improve ATM performance in EUROCONTROL and implement new technology in managing air traffic. The program is known as SESAR, and it has been in development since 2006 (Hird et al., 2016). The absence of a single service provider in Europe causes complications in ATM. SESAR is an initiative to fix this issue by coordinating the EU states with the goal of upgrading technology to meet the demands of the traffic growth, which is expected to increase by 2035 (SESAR Joint Undertaking). Taking this goal into consideration, it becomes evident that Europe values technology in its ATC practice and views it as a solution to streamlining its flight dispatches.
The US has a similar program, which also accentuates technological advancements in air traffic management. NextGen’s goal is to modernize the US airspace while sustaining safety and stability (Blundell et al., 2018). Whereas SESAR attempts to enhance airport capacity to host and provide maintenance to a larger number of aircraft simultaneously, NextGen intends to optimize its Towers with surveillance technologies. Digital videos would be used “to know exactly where all aircraft and ground vehicles are and provide oral warnings of potential runway incursions or ground collisions” (Miller et al., 2020, p. 6). It can be summarised that the US intends to address its major weakness, which is traffic congestion by increasing the safety level.
Conclusion
Altogether, it is evident that both EUROCONTROL and FAA have similar general goals, yet they differ in specifics. The US has a single provider, while Europe is more fragmented. This means that local regulations will enable additional restrictions on ATM and flight dispatches in Europe. At the same time, FAA is less vulnerable to states’ laws on air travel. EUROCONTROL and FAA have drastically different strategies to regulating airport capacity. Whereas Europe uses slot controls, American airports operate based on the current traffic dynamics. As a result, the US ATC is more flexible, yet more prone to congestion than in Europe.
However, EUROCONTROL performs better at service quality than FAA. Due to scheduling, European airports have less congestion and delays. In contrast, American airports constantly face delays and operate on a first-come first-served basis, which causes changes in the order of flight dispatches. Europe wants to use technology to increase its airport capacity, while the US intends to improve surveillance and make air traffic more predictable. Overall, the US air traffic control and flight dispatch standards are better because American airports have more runways, flexibility and operate under a single service provider, while the European ones have to harmonize and artificially limit traffic.
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