Capacity - Greece

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PRB monitoring

▪ Greece registered 0.43 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2021, thus missing the local breakdown value of 0.1.

▪ Delays were higher than the breakdown value despite the lower traffic: in Greece IFR movements in 2021 were 36% lower than in 2019.

▪ Capacity performance was affected by ATC staffing (contributing to more than 80% of the delay) caused by the amendment of HASP recruitment plans as a result of COVID-19.

▪ Traffic recovery is robust with both ACCs experiencing up to 90% of 2019 traffic during the summer. Traffic is expected to grow, with 2019 traffic levels likely being reached in 2022 (in high growth scenario) or 2023 (in base growth scenario). The number of ATCOs in OPS is planned to increase significantly by the end of RP3. However, the 2021 delay performance was similar to that of 2019, even with significantly lower traffic.

▪ Delays were highest between July and September, mostly due to ATC Staffing issues.

▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Greece decreased by 32.25 p.p. compared to 2020 and was lower than 2019 values.

▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Athens ACC was 49451, showing a 2.3% decrease compared to 2020. Sector opening hours are 13.4% below 2019 levels.

▪ Athens ACC registered 10.98 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2021, being 26.3% below 2019 levels.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Summary of capacity performance

Greece experienced an increase in traffic from 383k flights in 2020 to 569k flights in 2021. However, traffic levels were still substantially below the 884k flights in 2019.

In 2021, Greece had 245k minutes of ATFM delay - with the highest number of minutes of delay occurring in August (135k). There were 95k flights in August 2021. For comparison, in September 2019 there were 66k minutes of delay for just over 99k flights.

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

Greece experienced capacity gap due to ATC capacity and staffing. The feasibility of capacity enhancement measures is still questionable. The plan is heavily sensitive to the implementation of the new ATM system and to the recruitment plan for new ATCOs.

The enroute performance was negatively affected by staff shortages caused by the amendment of HASP’ s recruitment plans due to the covid -19 crisis. More specifically, the majority of the imposed restrictions during summer season of 2021, at a rate of more than 80%, were caused by these shortages (reason ATC STAFFING - S). Moreover the delay in the implementation of the investment plan due to covid-19 crisis resulted in delayed procedures for the procurement of a new ATM/CNS DPS.

Monitoring process for capacity performance

In 2021 monitoring was implemented by HANSA.

Capacity planning

PP Capacity target (0.32) was not consistent with the national reference value (0.10) and the actual value was even greater (0.43)

Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)

Recommendations made to the ANSP to improve the situation include: Implementation of capacity enhancement measures such as new ATM system, Enhanced Mode S Radar network, new voice communication system, airspace reorganisation, recruitment of ACC ATCOs, ATFM procedures.

There is doubt whether the planned increase of ATCOs will be finally feasible.

Other indicators

N/A

Terminal performance

Arrival ATFM delay (KPI#2)

Operational ANS performance at airports is monitored for one airport in Greece (i.e. Athens (LGAV)), the only airport subject to RP3 monitoring. The Airport Operator Data Flow is fully established and the monitoring of all capacity indicators can be performed. Nevertheless, the quality of the reporting 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 Athens in 2020 decreased is still 31% respect to 2019, even if the recovery at Athens has been significantly better than at other European airports.

Average arrival ATFM delays in 2021 was 1.63 min/arr, compared to 0.04 min/arr in 2020.
ATFM slot adherence has deteriorated (2021: 93.9%; 2020: 94.5%).

Average arrival ATFM delays at Athens (LGAV: 2019: 3.57 min/arr.; 2020: 0.04 min/arr.; 2021: 1.63 min/arr.) were the highest observed in the SES area in 2021. 95% of these delays were attributed to ATC capacity and they concentrated in the Summer.
According to the Greek monitoring report: The performance was negatively affected by staff shortages caused by the amendment of HASP’s recruitment plans due to the covid -19 crisis. It was also caused by some airport infrastructure issues.
The NSA identifies staff shortage and operational procedures as underlying reasons for the performance target not being met.
Recommendations to the ANSP include: Staff recruitment, CDM, A-SMGCS, PBN procedures, redesign of Athens TMA and new ATM surveillance system.
The NSA reports however that the measures that are foreseen do not guarantee a short term improvement.

The provisional national target on arrival ATFM delay in 2021 was not met, with actual arrival ATFM delays at 1.63 min/arr. in average, and the national target set at 0.90 min/arr.


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
Athens 0.04 1.63 NA NA 94.5% 93.9% NA% NA% 0.03 0.15 NA NA 8.0 12.9 NA NA

ATFM slot adherence

With the drastic drop in traffic, regulated departures from Athens virtually disappeared until July 2021.
Athens’s ATFM slot compliance was 93.9%, slightly worse than in 2020 (94.5%). With regard to the 6.1% of flights that did not adhere, 3% was early and 3.1% was late.

Greek NSA reports: The CTOT Adherence of LGAV airport in 2021 was > 80%. This value is within the limits of EC 255/10 and is slightly less than the one of 2020 . This is due to some airport infrastructure issues.

ATC pre-departure delay

The quality of the airport data reported by Athens airport 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 Athens.
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 Athens has been above 40% since April 2020, preventing the calculation of this indicator. Even with the traffic recovery the reporting has not improved, although Athens had proper reporting before the pandemic.

The Greek NSA reported last year that this issue was under consultation with the Provider and that further information would be provided in due time, after the collection and evaluation of all relevant data. However the Greek monitoring report of this year does not provide any information nor comment about this.

All causes pre-departure delay

The total (all causes) delay in the actual off block time at Athens increased in 2021 (LGAV: 2020: 8 min/dep.; 2021: 12.90 min/dep.). The highest delays per flight were observed in July and August, averaging more than 20 min/dep.