Annual Monitoring Report 2020 - Belgium
Contextual information
National performance plan adopted following Commission Decision (EU) 2024/350 of 13 December 2023
List of ACCs 1
Brussels ACC
No of airports in the scope of the performance plan
≥80’K 1
<80’K 0
Exchange rate (1 EUR=)
2017: 1 EUR
2020: 1 EUR
Share of Union-wide traffic (TSUs) 2020 2.1%
Share of Union-wide en route costs 2020 3.5%
Share en route / terminal costs 2020 86% / 14%
En route charging zone(s)
Belgium-Luxembourg
Terminal charging zone(s)
Belgium
Main ANSP
• skeyes
Other ANSPs
• MUAC
MET Providers
–
Traffic (En route traffic zone)
▪ The en route charging zone of Belgium-Luxembourg recorded 541K actual IFR movements in 2020, -57% compared to 2019 (1,249K).
▪ The reduction in IFR movements for Belgium-Luxembourg is in line with the average reduction at Union-wide level (-57%).
▪ The en route charging zone of Belgium-Luxembourg recorded 1,081K actual en route service units in 2020, -59% compared to 2019 (2,620K).
▪ Belgium-Luxembourg service units reduced more than the average reduction at Union-wide level (-57%).
Safety (Main ANSP)
▪ Skeyes did not achieve the RP3 targets on four management objectives in 2020. Safety promotion was the only objective in which Skeyes reached the RP3 target. ANA LUX did not achieve the RP3 targets on any of the five management objectives.
▪ Skeyes defined a safety development plan that explains how it plans to achieve the RP3 target levels by 2024. The NSA has not identified any issues that would prevent Skeyes from reaching the targets.
▪ Skeyes should improve its SMS by implementing automated safety data recording systems.
Environment (Member State)
▪ FABEC stated that half of the Union-wide RAD simplifications applied in 2020 were within FABEC airspace and that eNM measures were not needed. This helped improve the shortest constrained routes within FABEC, but was not sufficient in helping to reach the FAB-level KEA reference value (2.90%) in 2020. At a national level, Belgium and Luxembourg achieved a KEA performance of 3.37% and the FABEC reference value is 2.90%.
▪ FABEC mentioned that KEA is proportional to delays and stated that this impacted performance. The PRB does not agree with this as FABEC did not experience significant delays in 2020 and Belgium achieved its capacity breakdown value.
▪ While the share of flights operating CCO/CDO at Brussels airport improved in 2020 compared to 2019, the CDO performance is below the level achieved in 2016 when there was more congestion. The additional time airspace users spent taxiing or holding in terminal airspace reduced by 30% compared to 2019.
Capacity (Member State)
▪ Skeyes recorded 0.06 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight, thus performing better than the local breakdown value of 0.20.
▪ Delays must be considered in the context of the traffic evolution: IFR movements in 2020 were 57% below the 2019 levels in Belgium-Luxembourg. No capacity issues were reported by Belgium-Luxembourg. The number of ATCO FTEs increased by 1% compared to 2019 (2020 planned values were not reported).
▪ Based on the analysis of previous capacity profiles, the PRB estimates that Belgium-Luxembourg will face a capacity gap once IFR movements rise above 83% of 2019 levels. The PRB recommends that capacity improvement measures are implemented before traffic begins to recover.
▪ Delays were driven mostly by ATC capacity and staffing issues.
▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Belgium decreased by 19.34 p.p. compared to 2019.
▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Brussels ACC was 28,585, showing a 1.9% decrease compared to 2019.
▪ Brussels ACC registered 10.01 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2020, being 54.1% below 2019 levels.
Cost-efficiency (En route/Terminal charging zone(s))
▪ The 2020 actual service units (1,081K) were 57% lower than the actual service units in 2019 (2,538K).
▪ Belgium-Luxembourg increased all cost categories in 2020, with 2020 actual costs being 19 M€2017 (+10%) higher compared to 2019 actuals. Belgium and Luxembourg are one of the few Member States that increased costs and did not achieve the cost-efficiency targets in 2019.
▪ The increase in costs is attributable to four main reasons: (i) a change in allocation method of the approach costs, (ii) increased cost of capital due to higher net current assets (+48 M€2017, +323%), (iii) increased MUAC costs, and (iv) increased Eurocontrol costs.
▪ Skeyes spent 17.6 M€2017 in 2020 related to cost of investments, 5% less than planned in the 2019 draft performance plan (18.4 M€2017). A decrease in costs related to new major investments and other new investments was partly offset by an increase in costs related to existing investments.