Capacity - Bulgaria

PRB monitoring

▪ BULATSA registered zero minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2020, thus meeting the local breakdown value of 0.17.

▪ Delays must be considered in the context of the traffic evolution: IFR movements in 2020 were 57% below the 2019 levels in Bulgaria.

▪ The NSA reported some early issues in adapting the rostering scheme due to the pandemic but managed to resolve these without generating delays.

▪ ATCOs were also relocated to work on running projects, thus resulting in a reduction of over 5% of ATCO FTEs compared to 2019 (2020 planned values were not reported).

▪ Brussels ACC registered 10.01 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2020, being 54.1% below 2019 levels.

▪ Sofia ACC registered 16.15 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2020, being 31.6% below 2019 levels.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Summary of capacity performance

The Sofia FIR experienced a traffic reduction of 57% from 2019 levels, to 376k flights. The traffic level was accommodated with negligible en route ATFM delays to airspace users.

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

There is a sharp decrease of traffic level compared to 2019, however, it should duly be noted that a need for allotment of operational staff in 4-working flows is extremely demanding. The working flows have been put in place to restrict the spread of COVID 19 infection and to ensure the 24/7 service continuity. Besides, the allocation of 4-working flows came up unsatisfactory response to the match between demand and capacity in terms of available ATCOs, and therefore the number of working flows has been reduced to 3.
As a main priority to preserve the health of people Bulatsa was forced to switch to inflexible rostering, the freedom of ATCO’s movement in different shifts configurations has been restrained.

Monitoring process for capacity performance

[The NSA reported monitoring actions associated with the COVID 19 pandemic rather than monitoring actions regarding capacity performance.]

Capacity planning

Capacity planning is on weekly basis with regard to the traffic forecast delivered by NM. The forecast is of inaccurate nature leading to over- or underestimating the number of ATCOs needed for each particular day. Relaxation in [volume of] traffic [enabled] suspension of some RAD restrictions with no significant effect on capacity.

Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)

No data available

Other indicators

Factors influencing no of ATCOs include: partial reallocation of ATCOs to other duties (projects) and difficulty of predicting future needs.