Capacity - Czech Republic

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PRB monitoring

▪ Czech Republic registered 0.01 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2021, thus meeting the local breakdown value of 0.06.

▪ Delays should be considered in the context of lower traffic: In Czech Republic, IFR movements in 2021 were 53% lower than in 2019.

▪ Between February and May 2022, Czech Republic has been one of the five Member States to be the most affected by the airspace closures East of the SES area, which impacted its traffic recovery.

▪ 2019 traffic levels are not likely being reached during RP3. A slight increase in the number of ATCOs in OPS is planned during RP3 with no capacity related delays envisaged.

▪ Delays were highest in April and August, mostly due to adverse weather conditions and ATC disruptions.

▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in the Czech Republic increased by 16.44 p.p. compared to 2020 and was lower than 2019 values.

▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Prague ACC was 25,853, showing a 29.5% decrease compared to 2020. Sector opening hours are 44.4% below 2019 levels.

▪ Prague ACC registered 13.98 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2021, being 21.2% below 2019 levels.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Focus on en route ATFM delay

Summary of capacity performance

The Czech Republic experienced an increase in traffic from 340k flights in 2020 to 404k flights in 2021, with practically zero ATFM delays. However, traffic levels were still substantially below the 867k flights in 2019.

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

There were no material delay recorded in the Czech Republic due to significantly lower traffic caused by the COVID crisis.

Monitoring process for capacity performance

The monitoring process is based on quarterly monitoring reports prepared by ANS CR. These are based on the company Annual plan and cover all KPA. Quarterly reports are submitted to the CAA.

Capacity planning

There was enough capacity in the Czech Republic to cover actual demand in 2021. The spare capacity due to lower than originally predicted traffic was use to prepare the whole transition proces (testing, training, etc.) to new main ATM System - TopSky. The other main measures (ATS optimisation, FRA introduction, etc.) were deployed. Additional training was carried out to maintain ATCO skills.

Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)

Following the OPS introduction of the New ATM system TopSky, capacities were reduced. Since 25 FEB 2022 gradual increase of capacities is taking place, but at the time of issuing this monitoring report the capacities do not achieve 100% of available planned capacity. This process is significantly hampered by consequences of war in Ukraine and disruptions of operations in PANSA organisation (ANSP Poland).

Other indicators

Focus on ATCOs in operations

N/A

Terminal performance

Arrival ATFM delay (KPI#2)

Focus on arrival ATFM delay

Czech Republic has included only Prague in their last Performance Plan for RP3 monitoring.
The Airport Operator Data Flow, necessary for the monitoring of the additional times, is correctly established at Prague and the monitoring of all environment indicators can be performed.
Traffic this airport in 2021 was still 62% lower than in 2019, even if 13% higher than in 2020.

Average arrival ATFM delays at Prague in 2021 was 0.01 min/arr, compared to 0.09 min/arr in 2020.
ATFM slot adherence has improved (2021: 95.3%; 2020: 94.7%).

Delays at Prague (LKPR: 2019: 0.18 min/arr.; 2020: 0.09 min/arr.; 2021: 0.01 min/arr.) averaged nearly zero, and were only registered in December. 100% of these regulations were attributed to ATC capacity

The provisional national target on arrival ATFM delay in 2021 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
Brno Turany	NA	NA	NA	NA	100.0%	98.2%	NA%	NA%	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Karlovy Vary	NA	NA	NA	NA	100.0%	100.0%	NA%	NA%	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Ostrava	NA	NA	NA	NA	100.0%	98.0%	NA%	NA%	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Prague/Ruzyne	0.09	0.01	NA	NA	94.7%	95.3%	NA%	NA%	0.22	NA	NA	NA	8.3	8.3	NA	NA

Focus on performance indicators at airport level

ATFM slot adherence

With the drastic drop in traffic, the share of regulated departures from Prague virtually disappeared until July 2021.
The slot adherence in 2021 was 95.3%, a slight improvement with respect to 2020 (94.9%). With regard to the 4.7% of flights that did not adhere, 4.2% was early and 0.5% was late.

ATC pre-departure delay

The quality of the airport data reported by Prague (the only Czech airport subject to monitoring of this indicator) is too low, preventing the calculation of this indicator.

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 Prague.
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 Prague was well above 40% since April 2020, preventing the calculation of this indicator. Prague had proper reporting before the pandemic, but now even with the traffic recovery, unidentified delays still account for more than 50% of the total delays.

All causes pre-departure delay

Prague is the only Czech airport subject to the monitoring of this indicator.
The total (all causes) delay in the actual off block time at Prague in 2021 was nearly the same as in 2020 (LKPR: 2020: 8.30 min/dep.; 2021: 8.32 min/dep.). The highest delays per flight were observed in January-February and in April.