PRB monitoring
▪ Italy registered 0.05 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2021, thus meeting the local breakdown value of 0.07.
▪ En route ATFM delays in Italy were also near zero on average during past years.
▪ Traffic is expected to grow, with 2019 levels likely being reached in 2023 (in high growth scenario) or 2024 (in base growth scenario). A slight increase in the number of ATOCs in OPS is planned in all ACCs except Rome (slight decrease) by the end of RP3.
▪ Delays were highest between August and October, mostly due to adverse weather conditions and industrial actions.
▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Italy decreased by 37.15 p.p. compared to 2020 and was lower than 2019 values.
▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Brindisi ACC was 18,626, showing a 49.7% increase compared to 2020. Sector opening hours are 8.1% below 2019 levels. The yearly total of sector opening hours in Milano ACC was 60,868, showing a 34.9% increase compared to 2020. Sector opening hours are 30.0% below 2019 levels. The yearly total of sector opening hours in Padova ACC was 39,789, showing a 44.7% increase compared to 2020. Sector opening hours are 28.6% below 2019 levels. The yearly total of sector opening hours in Rome ACC was 48,248, showing a 20.7% decrease compared to 2020. Sector opening hours are 12.5% below 2019 levels.
▪ Brindisi ACC registered 12.03 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2021, being 33.1% below 2019 levels. Milano ACC registered 8.76 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2021, being 16.5% below 2019 levels. Padova ACC registered 10.55 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2021, being 22.8% below 2019 levels. Rome ACC registered 10.60 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2021, being 35.4% below 2019 levels.
Summary of capacity performance
Italy experienced an increase in traffic from 782k flights in 2020 to 1,106k flights in 2021, with 54k minutes of en route ATFM delays. The ATFM delays in 2021 were attributed to industrial action (45%) and adverse weather. (55%)
However, traffic levels were still substantially below the 1,962k flights in 2019, for which there were 32k minutes of en route ATFM delay.
NSA’s assessment of capacity performance
The two most significant reasons of ATFM Enroute ATFM delay were Industrial Action (45% of total) and Weather (the remaning 55%). As such, there is no “ATM responsibility” in the generation of the delay.
Monitoring process for capacity performance
Monthly monitoring and analysis of the operational performance at Country and single ACC level carried out by ENAV. Check is made against the value of ATFM generated delay per month and its exepcted trend across the year.
Capacity planning
No capacity issues. The FTEs planned in the Performance Plan were consistent with the maximum configurations needed and coordinated with NM and published in the Rolling NOP.
Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)
No data available
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 in 2021 is still 52% lower than in 2019.
Average arrival ATFM delays in 2021 was 0.03 min/arr, compared to 0.04 min/arr in 2020.
ATFM slot adherence has improved (2021: 96.8%; 2020: 95.9%).
The national average arrival ATFM delay at Italian airports in 2021 was 0.03 min/arr and most delays were recorded in the second half of the year.
81% of all delays at Italian airports were attributed to weather and 13% associated with industrial action in Milan Malpensa and Venice in the summer.
At airport level, the worst delays were observed at Bergamo (LIME) were regulations issued resulted in 1833 minutes of delay, of which only 14’ were attributable to industrial actions and the remaining 1819 were determined by regulations issued due to adverse weather conditions.
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.
| 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 |
0.00 |
NA |
NA |
98.0% |
98.1% |
NA% |
NA% |
0.64 |
0.89 |
NA |
NA |
6.4 |
9.2 |
NA |
NA |
| Linate |
0.06 |
0.03 |
NA |
NA |
96.1% |
96.9% |
NA% |
NA% |
0.05 |
0.06 |
NA |
NA |
5.1 |
7.8 |
NA |
NA |
| Malpensa |
0.02 |
0.05 |
NA |
NA |
97.3% |
97.2% |
NA% |
NA% |
0.36 |
0.64 |
NA |
NA |
17.8 |
20.1 |
NA |
NA |
| Orio Al Serio |
0.04 |
0.07 |
NA |
NA |
94.8% |
96.1% |
NA% |
NA% |
0.52 |
0.77 |
NA |
NA |
8.0 |
12.5 |
NA |
NA |
| Venice Tessera |
0.16 |
0.04 |
NA |
NA |
90.0% |
94.2% |
NA% |
NA% |
0.85 |
0.68 |
NA |
NA |
9.8 |
12.0 |
NA |
NA |
ATFM slot adherence
With the drastic drop in traffic, the share of regulated departures from Italian airports virtually disappeared until July 2021.
All Italian airports showed adherence above 94% and the national average was 96.8%, an improvement with respect to 2020 (95.9%). With regard to the 3.2% of flights that did not adhere, 1.9% was early and 1.4% was late.
The Italian NSA reports: Slightly worse performance is reported in the prefilled tables for year 2021 with respect to the values elaborated by ENAV for the same year, which are based upon NM/NMIR tool. The decimal digits should be two/three units higher. Such a difference is likely to happen because the flight sample granted from the ATFM standard slot time window, as reported by PRB, is different from what was counted in by the ANSPs. Anyhow values are very still very good and show improvement in respect of 2020 ones.
ATC pre-departure delay
The performance at all three Italian airports where this indicator can be calculated had notably improved in 2020 with respect to 2019, but it deteriorated alongside the traffic recovery in the second half of 2021 at Fiumicino and Bergamo (LIRF; 2019: 1.47 min/dep.; 2020: 0.64 min/dep.; 2021: 0.89 min/dep.; LIME: 2019: 0.99 min/dep.; 2020: 0.53 min/dep.; 2021: 0.77 min/dep.; LIPZ; 2019: 1.75 min/dep.; 2020: 0.86 min/dep.; 2021: 0.75 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 the italian airports subject to monitoring.
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 7.79 min/dep for Milan Linate (LIML) and 20.14 min/dep. for Milan Malpensa (LIMC) which are, respectively, the 3rd lowest and the 3rd highest among the RP3 monitored airports.
Malpensa and Bergamo (LIME) observed the highest delays in February and December, while the other airports observed higher delays during the Summer season.