Annual Monitoring Report 2020 - Portugal
Contextual information
National performance plan adopted following Commission Decision (EU) 2022/767 of 13 April 2022
List of ACCs 1
Lisbon ACC
No of airports in the scope of the performance plan
≥80’K 2
<80’K 8
Exchange rate (1 EUR=)
2017: 1 EUR
2020: 1 EUR
Share of Union-wide traffic (TSUs) 2020 3.0%
Share of Union-wide en route costs 2020 1.9%
Share en route / terminal costs 2020 77% / 23%
En route charging zone(s)
Portugal Continental
Terminal charging zone(s)
Portugal
Main ANSP
• NAV Portugal (Continental)
Other ANSPs
• Estado Maior da Força Aérea
• Estado Maior da Armada
MET Providers
• IPMA
Traffic (En route traffic zone)
▪ Portugal recorded 267K actual IFR movements in 2020, -59% compared to 2019 (651K).
▪ Portugal IFR movements reduced more than the average reduction at Union-wide level (-57%).
▪ Portugal recorded 1,556K actual en route service units in 2020, -62% compared to 2019 (4,060K).
▪ Portugal service units reduced more than the average reduction at Union-wide level (-57%).
Safety (Main ANSP)
▪ NAV Portugal achieved the RP3 EoSM targets in 2020 and exceeded the targets in two out of five management objectives. The achieved levels are better than what was planned in the draft 2019 performance plan.
▪ The NSA said that NAV Portugal will continue to make every effort to maintain and improve the current safety performance levels and defined a set of measures to achieve this.
▪ Portugal recorded good performance with respect to safety occurrences with no occurrences recorded for SMIs or RIs. This improved the already low rate of SMIs and RIs recorded in 2019.
▪ NAV Portugal should improve its SMS by implementing automated safety data recording systems.
Environment (Member State)
▪ Portugal achieved a KEA performance of 1.79% compared to its reference value of 1.76% and therefore did not contribute positively towards achieving the Union-wide target.
▪ The NSA stated that thee reason for Portugal did not achieve the reference value is that the measurement of KEA performance was biased in 2020 since traffic was very low.
▪ However, KEA is linearly proportional to IFR movements and therefore less traffic generally improves performance. Indeed, Portugal admitted this in its performance plan. The performance in the first three months of 2020 was an issue that the NSA should seek to address.
▪ Only three out of 10 Portuguese airports that are regulated reported terminal data.
▪ The share of flights operating CCO/CDO at Portuguese airports improved in 2020 compared to 2019. The additional time airspace users spent taxiing or holding in terminal airspace reduced by 39% compared to 2019.
Capacity (Member State)
▪ NAV Portugal registered 0.25 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight, thus not achieving the local breakdown value of 0.23.
▪ Delays must be considered in the context of the traffic evolution: IFR movements in 2020 were 59% below the 2019 levels in Portugal.
▪ Portugal reported that delays were generated by the transition to the provisional OPS room, associated works in the main OPS room, and the implementation of social distancing measures, which all reduced the available capacity.
▪ When comparing the first two months of 2020, the traffic was slightly lower than in 2019 (-2%) but en route ATFM delay increased by 38%.
▪ Portugal reported an almost 2% increase in ATCO FTE numbers in 2020 compared to 2019 values but this is still 8% less than planned for 2020.
▪ Portugal reported no rectifying measures to improve capacity performance.
▪ Delays were mostly related to ATC capacity issues and preventive COVID-19 measures.
▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Portugal decreased by 2.8 p.p. compared to 2019.
▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Lisbon ACC was 48,067, showing a 30.5% decrease compared to 2019.
▪ Lisbon ACC registered 5.07 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2020, being 42.2% below 2019 levels.
Cost-efficiency (En route/Terminal charging zone(s))
▪ Portugal is the third most affected Member State by COVID-19 in terms of traffic decrease. In 2020, the actual service units (1,556K) were 61% lower than the actual service units in 2019 (4,034K).
▪ Portugal had the third highest percentage saving in 2020 across all Member States, with a 28 M€2017 (-20%) reduction in 2020 actual total costs compared to 2019 actual costs. The reduction is mainly driven by a decrease in staff costs of 28 M€2017 (-26%), resulting from wage freezes, impact on pension plan liabilities and reduction in overtime.
▪ NAV Portugal spent 13 M€2017 in 2020 related to cost of investments, 4% less than planned in the 2019 draft performance plan (14 M€2017). The reduction can be attributable to a lower cost of capital due to a lower asset base and a reduction of the WACC.