Capacity - Romania

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PRB monitoring

▪ ROMATSA registered zero minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2020, thus meeting the local breakdown value of 0.14.

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

▪ Romania reported no capacity issues and a decrease of more than 3% in ATCO FTE numbers in 2020 compared to 2019 values. This represents a 10% deficit of ATCO FTEs compared to the planned number of ATCO FTEs for 2020. The deficit was caused by the interruption of recruitment and training processes due to the pandemic. The NSA also reported the problem of aging ATCOs at Bucuresti ACC, which is planned to be mitigated by the end of RP3.

▪ Based on the analysis of previous capacity profiles, the PRB estimates Romania will face a capacity gap once IFR movements rise above 95% of 2019 levels. The PRB recommends that capacity improvement measures are implemented before traffic begins to recover.

▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Bucharest ACC was 68,808, showing a 0.3% increase compared to 2019.

▪ Bucharest ACC registered 4.56 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2020, being 57.5% below 2019 levels.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Summary of capacity performance

The Bucharest FIR experienced a traffic reduction of 57% from 2019 levels, to 320k flights. The traffic level was accommodated with zero en route ATFM delays to airspace users.

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

The significantly reduced traffic in the pandemic context allowed during 2020 optimised traffic flows and values (0) for ATFM delay per flight. Nevertheless, in the perspective of future traffic recovery, ROMATSA continues the airspace structure improvement process, by supporting Free Route operations expansion in the context of SEEFRA, by removing the ATS Routes above FL105 within Bucuresti CTA during Summer Season 2021 and by sectorisation improvements (planned for Winter Season 2021-2022).

Monitoring process for capacity performance

ROMATSA provided regularly inputs on capacity availability in the context of NOP Rolling Seasonal Plan implemented by the Network manager at European network level. The expected en-route performance was and is regularly evaluated by the NM for each ACC, including Bucuresti ACC, in terms of planned/maximum sector openings in relation with the estimated traffic demand.

NSA: capacity actual values are monitored using the data officially published by EUROCONTROL (e.g. PRU dashboard, Performance Review Reports), PRB monitoring reports, ESSKY, etc. and trends are analysed periodically and if the case may be, corrective measures are applied . No corrective actions were required for 2020, target has been met.

Capacity planning

In the context of COVID-19 crisis, the capacity as previously planned and published within an annual NOP (Network Operations Plan) has been adapted accordingly by adoption of capacity plans under a NOP Rolling Seasonal Plan format, including periods of 6 weeks, based on the expected traffic demand regularly provided by the Network Manager.

These plans refer to:
- sector openings
- maximum possible sector openings
- availability of support of operational staff.
- special events and projects, etc.

Bucuresti ACC ensured a stable sector opening plan with no sector capacity reduction throughout this difficult period, with the possibility to increase the number of sectors plan, if the traffic is increasing and support staff working as normal.

Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)

No data available

Other indicators

Bucharest ACC: As presented during the RP2 revision process, ROMATSA faces an ageing ATCO personnel. This is especially true in ACC Bucharest, where more than 1/3 of ATCOs are over 50 years old and will be over age 55 at the end of RP3. It takes between 3 to 5 years to fully train and authorize an ATCO for ACC, therefore a recruitment process was started in 2017 and should continue until the end of RP3, as was approved through the RP2 revision in December 2018, to guarantee proper staffing levels to ensure safety and capacity. Due to the impact of the COVID19 pandemic, the recruitment process was temporary frozen and will be shifted accordingly.

Terminal performance

Arrival ATFM delay (KPI#2)

Romania includes 2 airports under RP3 monitoring. However, in accordance with IR (EU) 2019/317 and the traffic figures, only Bucharest/Otopeni (LROP) must be monitored for the pre-departure delay indicators. The Airport Operator Data Flow, necessary for the monitoring of these delays, is correctly implemented where required and the monitoring of all capacity indicators can be performed. Nevertheless, the quality of the reporting from Bucharest does not allow for the calculation of the ATC pre-departure delay, with more than 60% of the reported delay not allocated to any cause.
Traffic at these 2 airports decreased in 2020 by 56% with respect to 2019. Average zero delays were observed at both airports in 2020 and slot adherence at national level was 96.6%.

The significantly reduced traffic due to the pandemic context allowed ROMATSA to reach the capacity indicator for terminal and airport with 0 average delays.
In 2020 only a 43 minutes of ATFM delay at LROP were due only to aerodrome capacity before the start of the pandemic.

According to the Romanian monitoring report: ROMATSA and Bucharest Airports National Company continue to work together to ensure optimum capacity level at terminal level as this impacts the entire network. On one hand ROMATSA has implemented at Otopeni TWR a different ATM system with A-SMGCS component, composed of a surveillance subsystem (operational for over three years) and an electronic flight strips subsystem (transferred into operations on April 8th 2019 ), interfaced via OLDI with the System covering the rest of the ATS units.
There is in place also a common procedure between Bucharest Airports National Company and TWR Otopeni for repairing works periods on the manoeuvring area, i.e. pre-established alternative standard taxi routes;
According to EU Reg 255/2010 a common procedure regarding ATFM for the regulation of traffic in situations that may influence the airport’s capacity is in place.
Implementation of AMAN at Bucharest APP is foreseen also during RP3.

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.

Other terminal performance indicators (PI#1-3)

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
Bucharest AUREL VLAICU NA NA NA NA 100.0% NA% NA% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Bucharest HENRI COANDA 0 NA NA NA 96.6% NA% NA% NA% 0.1 NA NA NA 10.2 NA NA NA

ATFM slot adherence

With the drastic drop in traffic, the share of regulated departures from Bucharest/Otopeni virtually disappeared as of April. The annual figures are therefore driven by the performance in the first trimester.
Only 17 departures in total from Bucharest/Băneasa (LRBS) were regulated in the entire year, with a 100% compliance.
The national average, driven by Bucharest/Otopeni, was 96.6%.With regard to the 3.4% of flights that did not adhere, 3% was early and 0.4% was late.

The Romanian NSA reports that Performance improved compared to 2019. According to EU Reg 255/2010 a common procedure regarding ATFM for the regulation of traffic in situations that may influence the airport’s capacity is in place between Bucharest Airports National Company and ROMATSA.

ATC pre-departure delay

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 Bucharest/Otopeni (the only Romanian airport subject to monitoring of this indicator).
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.

The share of unidentified delay reported by Bucharest/Otopeni (LROP) was above 40% since March 2020 (preventing the calculation of this indicator) due to the special traffic composition during the months of the pandemic. LROP had proper reporting before March 2020.

All causes pre-departure delay

The total (all causes) delay in the actual off block time at Bucharest/Otopeni (LROP) in 2020 was 10.22 min/dep. The higher delays per flight were observed in the second trimester of the year, due to the lower traffic and extraordinary circumstances.
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.