Capacity - Portugal

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PRB monitoring

▪ Portugal registered 0.07 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2021, thus meeting the local breakdown value of 0.09. The two main delay causes in Lisbon ACC were ATC capacity and ATC staffing during summer 2021.

▪ Delays should be considered in the context of lower traffic: in Portugal, IFR movements in 2021 were 47% lower than in 2019.

▪ Traffic is expected to grow, with 2019 levels likely being reached in 2023 (in high growth scenario) or 2024 (in base growth scenar-io) in Lisbon FIR. A significant increase in the number of ATCOs in OPS is planned in Lisbon ACC by the end of RP3.

▪ Delays were highest between July and December, mainly due to ATC Capacity and Staffing.

▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Portugal decreased by 12.38 p.p. compared to 2020 and was lower than 2019 values.

▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Lisbon ACC was 51,972, showing an 8.1% increase compared to 2020. Sector opening hours are 24.8% below 2019 levels.

▪ Lisbon ACC registered 6.06 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2021, being 30.9% below 2019 levels.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Summary of capacity performance

Portugal experienced an increase in traffic from 311k flights in 2020 to 401k flights in 2021. However, traffic levels were still substantially below the 733k flights in 2019.

In 2021, Portugal had 26k minutes of ATFM delay - with approximately 80% attributed to ATC capacity and 20% to ATC staffing.

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

During the first quarter of 2021 the traffic levels were still highly affected by the COVID 19 pandemic restrictions, but increased steadily to reach levels close to those of 2019 (only 16% below). Thus, even though the level of achievement has been very close to the required target, the unexpected continuous traffic increase throughout the year led to a final result that could lead to an interpretation of a very small annual variation. It is important not to overlook the fact that the target initially set was derived from a traffic forecast that was expected to still show COVID 19 limitations. However, these were not as relevant as expected, thus the forecast traffic numbers were underestimated.

Monitoring process for capacity performance

ANAC has established a procedure to monitor capacity that consists in quarterly reports by the ANSP and follow-up meetings to established the need of corrective measures if and whenever necessary.

Capacity planning

The initially low traffic volumes of 2021 combined with rigorous planning of ATCO rostering (in order to balance the operational and training needs of the new system), created the conditions for the ANSP not to exceed the target set for 2021. Nonetheless, at some points when the traffic was close to the 2019 values, the ANSP was under pressure to accommodate traffic demand.

Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)

The recovery in traffic levels expected to occur in the summer of 2022 in the Lisbon FIR, and the transition to the new ATM System planned until October of 2022 together pose serious risks to the proposed performance targets. The ATM System transition risk had been identified and is being managed by NAV Portugal through a thorough preparation process. However, together with potentialy higher than expected levels of traffic the risks associated are exponentiated.
In order to minimize potential impacts NAV Portugal is taking several measures, as reinforcing training hours and anticipating the implemention of system components that allow higher cpapcity. Notwithstanding, with the higher traffic the risks also increase.

The NSA has been supervising closely the ATM System transition process, in particular the shadow operation which started in March

Other indicators

The delta between the expected number of new ATCOs and the actual final figure is mainly the result of three factors:
1 -A longer period of training caused by the effect of the pandemic that, not only forced several interruptions in the training process and thus prolonging the normal training period, but also created a non-standard traffic demand, thus making it more difficult to qualify the ATCOs with the required proficiency level to cope with 2019 traffic numbers. As such 3 ATCOs began working in the OPS room in January and February of 2022, instead of 2021.
2 -The early retirement of several ATCOs, due to health reasons and lack of motivation associated with the traffic reduction and also due to the near implementation of a new ATM system;
3 - Student ATCO failing their final rating evaluation (1 student ATCO failed).

Terminal performance

Arrival ATFM delay (KPI#2)

The scope of RP3 monitoring for Portugal comprises 10 airports in 2020, However, in accordance with IR (EU) 2019/317 and the traffic figures, only two of these airports (Lisbon (LPPT) and Porto (LPPR)) must be monitored for pre-departure delays.
The Airport Operator Data Flow, necessary for the monitoring of these pre-departure delays, is correctly established where required and the monitoring of all capacity indicators can be performed. Nevertheless, the quality of the reporting from Porto 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 10 airports, that had increased considerably during RP2, and regardless of an increase versus 2020 of 32% was still in 2021 42% lower than in 2019.

Average arrival ATFM delays in 2021 was 0.58 min/arr, compared to 0.97 min/arr in 2020.
ATFM slot adherence has improved (2021: 96.1%; 2020: 95.3%).

The national average arrival ATFM delay at Portuguese airports in 2021 was 0.58min/arr, significantly lower than the 0.97 min/arr of 2020 and drastically lower than the 2.76 min/arr in 2019.
At airport level, only Lisbon and Porto registered delays (Madeira observed only marginal delays)
At Porto (LPPR; 2019: 3.09 min/arr; 2020: 0.77 min/arr; 2021: 2.14 min/arr) delays have significantly increased with respect to the previous year, concentrated in the period May to December and attributed mostly to weather (56%) and aerodrome capacity (39%).
Lisbon (LPPT; 2019: 4.13 min/arr; 2020: 1.72 min/arr; 2021: 0.28 min/arr) on the other hand has drastically decreased the delays. 40% of these delays were attributed to weather, 28% to aerodrome capacity and 13% to airspace management issues.

According to the Portuguese monitoring report: The initially low traffic figures during 2021 were dully handled at airport level, particularly by Lisbon airport, which was the main source of delays before the pandemic. However, when traffic numbers approached those of 2019, the airport infrastructure, once more with emphasis for Lisbon, was under pressure to accommodate the demand.
In the Lisbon airport the expectation of traffic recovery for the summer of 2022 is now higher than when the Performance Plan was presented in October 2021. In particular stakeholders are expecting traffic levels to be close to 2019. Considering that the Lisbon airport is highly constrained in terms of infrastructure capacity, the performance issues witnessed in 2019 may come back in 2022.On the ANSP side, a plan to minimize the impact of the ATM System transition is being developed, including the anticipation of implementation of the new system tools that allow higher approach capacity.
The Portuguese NSA developed an action plan to prepare the summer of 2022 encompassing all civil aviation stakeholders, which is underway. The action plan includes most of the Portuguese airports, although the Lisbon airport given its circumstances is key in this process.
The traffic numbers for 2021 were still highly affected by the aftermath of the COVID19 pandemic, thus not indicative of the real demand on normal 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.

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
Cascais NA NA NA NA 82.6% 88.9% NA% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Faro 0.00 0.00 NA NA 95.8% 94.3% NA% NA% 0.09 0.58 NA NA 8.2 8.5 NA NA
Horta NA NA NA NA 93.8% 90.9% NA% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Lisbon 1.72 0.28 NA NA 96.5% 98.8% NA% NA% 2.14 1.22 NA NA 12.0 11.0 NA NA
Madeira NA 0.03 NA NA 93.2% 93.7% NA% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Montijo NA NA NA NA 0.0% 50.0% NA% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Ponta Delgada NA NA NA NA 98.2% 97.6% NA% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Porto 0.77 2.14 NA NA 93.4% 93.5% NA% NA% 0.26 0.25 NA NA 9.2 10.7 NA NA
Porto Santo NA NA NA NA 92.9% 97.4% NA% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Santa Maria NA NA NA NA 100.0% 100.0% NA% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

ATFM slot adherence

With the drastic drop in traffic, the share of regulated departures from Portuguese airports virtually disappeared until July 2021.
Most Portuguese airports showed adherence around or above 90%.
The national average was 96.1%, an improvement with respect to 2020’s performance (95.3%). With regard to the 3.9% of flights that did not adhere, 3% was early and 0.9% was late.

ATC pre-departure delay

The performance at Lisbon, the only Portuguese airport where this indicator can be calculated has further improved with respect to the previous years (LPPT; 2019: 4.16 min/dep.; 2020: 2.13 min/dep.; 2021: 1.22 min/dep.) and even if it increased in the second half of 2021, it was lower than the 2019 values. Nevertheless, this delay is still the highest in the SES area.
The quality of the airport data reported by Porto was too low, preventing the calculation of this indicator for this airport, but the quality of the reporting has improved in the second half of 2021 alongside the traffic recovery.

All causes pre-departure delay

The total (all causes) delay in the actual off block time at Lisbon decreased in 2021 (LPPT: 2020: 12.02 min/dep.; 2021: 11.03 min/dep.) and increased at Porto (LPPR: 2020: 9.15 min/dep.; 2021: 10.70 min/dep.).
The higher delays for Lisbon were observed in the second part of the year, while the situation at Porto was changing from month to month registering the highest delays in August (16 min/dep)
According to the Portuguese monitoring report: The traffic numbers for 2021 were still highly affected by the aftermath of the COVID19 pandemic, thus not indicative of the real demand on normal conditions.