PRB monitoring
▪ ENAV registered 0.01 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2020, thus meeting the local breakdown value of 0.25.
▪ Delays must be considered in the context of the traffic evolution: IFR movements in 2020 were 60% below the 2019 levels in Italy.
▪ Italy reported no capacity issues and did not submit any data regarding ATCO FTE numbers.
▪ Delays were mostly driven by disruptions (ATC industrial actions).
▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Italy increased by 16.31 p.p. compared to 2019.
▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Brindisi ACC was 12,442, showing a 38.6% decrease compared to 2019. The yearly total of sector opening hours in Milano ACC was 45,142, showing a 48.1% decrease compared to 2019. The yearly total of sector opening hours in Padova ACC was 27,510, showing a 50.7% decrease compared to 2019. The yearly total of sector opening hours in Rome ACC was 60,829, showing a 10.6% increase compared to 2019.
▪ Brindisi ACC registered 11.15 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2020, being 37.9% below 2019 levels. Milano ACC registered 8.1 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2020, being 22.8% below 2019 levels. Padova ACC registered 10.54 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2020, being 22.9% below 2019 levels. Rome ACC registered 6.14 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2020, being 62.6% below 2019 levels.
Summary of capacity performance
Italy experienced a traffic reduction of 60% from 2019 levels, to 782k flights. The traffic level was accommodated with just over 5k minutes en route ATFM delays to airspace users, all of which were attributed to ATC industrial action in January 2020.
NSA’s assessment of capacity performance
[Capacity] target has been largely exceeded as a consequence of lack of traffic.
Monitoring process for capacity performance
No data available
Capacity planning
No data available
Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)
No data available
No information on actual ATCO in OPS was provided in monitoring report.
Italy identified five airports as subject to RP3 monitoring. All of them have a fully implemented data flow that allows the proper monitoring of pre-departure delays. Nevertheless, the quality of the reporting does not allow for the calculation of the ATC pre-departure delay at both Milan airports, with more than 60% of the reported delay not allocated to any cause.
Traffic at the ensemble of these Italian airports decreased by 62% in 2020 with respect to 2019, and Milan Linate was closed to commercial traffic from the 16th of March till the 13th of July 2020.
Arrival ATFM delays were 85% lower than in 2019 following the drastic drop in traffic. All causes pre-departure delay at Malpensa (LIMC) was the highest in the SES area, with almost 18 min/dep annual average.
The national average arrival ATFM delay at Italian airports in 2020 was 0.04 min/arr, significantly lower than the 0.29 min/arr in 2019 (-85%).
Most delays were recorded in the first two months of the year. After that, in line with the drop in traffic, the delays disappeared and only in December some minor delays due to industrial action were recorded at Milan Malpensa.
84% of all delays at Italian airports were attributed to weather.
Some delays associated with industrial action were also recorded in January and Bergamo.
At airport level, the worst delays were observed at Venice (LIPZ), even if only in January and February, resulting in an annual average of 0.16 min/arr.
The provisional national target on arrival ATFM delay in 2020 was met.
In accordance with Article 3 (3) (a) of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/1627: The incentive scheme shall cover only the calendar years 2022 to 2024.
| Airport level |
| Airport name |
Avg arrival
ATFM delay (KPI#2)
|
Slot adherence (PI#1)
|
ATC pre departure
delay (PI#2)
|
All causes pre departure
delay (PI#3)
|
| 2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
| Fiumicino |
0.02 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
98.0% |
NA% |
NA% |
NA% |
0.64 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
6.4 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
| Linate |
0.06 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
96.1% |
NA% |
NA% |
NA% |
0.05 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
5.1 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
| Malpensa |
0.02 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
97.3% |
NA% |
NA% |
NA% |
0.36 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
17.8 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
| Orio Al Serio |
0.04 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
94.8% |
NA% |
NA% |
NA% |
0.52 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
8.0 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
| Venice Tessera |
0.16 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
90.0% |
NA% |
NA% |
NA% |
0.85 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
9.8 |
NA |
NA |
NA |
ATFM slot adherence
With the drastic drop in traffic, the share of regulated departures from Italian airports virtually disappeared as of April. The annual figures are therefore driven by the performance in the first trimester.
All Italian airports showed adherence at or above 90% and the national average was 95.9%. With regard to the 4.1% of flights that did not adhere, 3.2% was early and 0.9% was late.
It is worth noticing that 8.4% of the regulated departures from Venice (LIPZ) departed early.
ATC pre-departure delay
The performance at all three Italian airports where this indicator can be calculated has notably improved with respect to the previous year (LIRF; 2019: 1.47 min/dep.; 2020: 0.64 min/dep.; LIME: 2019: 0.99 min/dep.; 2020: 0.53 min/dep.; LIPZ; 2019: 1.75 min/dep.; 2020: 0.86 min/dep.)
The quality of the airport data reported by Milan Linate and Milan Malpensa was too low, preventing the calculation of this indicator for these two airports.
The calculation of the ATC pre-departure delay is based on the data provided by the airport operators through the Airport Operator Data Flow (APDF) which is properly implemented at Copenhagen.
However, there are several quality checks before EUROCONTROL can produce the final value which is established as the average minutes of pre-departure delay (delay in the actual off block time) associated to the IATA delay code 89 (through the APDF, for each delayed flight, the reasons for that delay have to be transmitted and coded according to IATA delay codes.
However, sometimes the airport operator has no information concerning the reasons for the delay in the off block, or they cannot convert the reasons to the IATA delay codes. In those cases, the airport operator might:
- Not report any information about the reasons for the delay for that flight (unreported delay)
- Report a special code to indicate they do not have the information (code ZZZ)
- Report a special code to indicate they do not have the means to collect and/or translate the information (code 999)
To be able to calculate with a minimum of accuracy the PI for a given month, the minutes of delay that are not attributed to any IATA code reason should not exceed 40% of the total minutes of pre-departure delay observed at the airport.
Finally, to be able to produce the annual figure, at least 10 months of valid data is requested by EUROCONTROL.
Both Milan airports had proper reporting before April 2020, but the special traffic composition since then resulted in the share of unidentified delay exceeding the 40%.
All causes pre-departure delay
The total (all causes) delay in the actual off block time at Italian airports in 2020 was between 5.14 min/dep for Milan Linate (LIML), which is the second lowest among the RP3 monitored airports, and 17.81 min/dep. for Milan Malpensa (LIMC) which is the highest among the RP3 monitored airports.
The higher delays per flight at Malpensa were observed in the second trimester of the year, due to the lower traffic and extraordinary circumstances, but the last trimester there was also an important increase of delays with an average delay in December above 30 min/dep.
Bergamo (LIME: 2020: 8.00 min/dep.) also observed a drastic increase of the all causes pre-departure delay in December, reaching an average of 25 min/dep.
This performance indicator has been introduced in the performance scheme for the first time this year, so no evolution with respect to 2019 can be analysed.