Capacity - Austria

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PRB monitoring

▪ Austria registered 0.10 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2022 which has been adjusted to 0.07 during the post-ops adjustment process, thus achieving the local target value of 0.17.

▪ The average number of IFR movements was still 7% below 2019 levels in Austria in 2022.

▪ The number of ATCOs in OPS is planned to increase by 7% by the end of RP3, with the actual value being above the 2022 plan in Vienna ACC.

▪ Delays were highest between June and August, mostly driven by ATC staffing and adverse weather.

▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Austria decreased by 1.1 p.p. compared to 2021 and was higher than 2019 values.

▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Vienna ACC was 57,256 in 2022, showing a 15.4% increase compared to 2021. Sector opening hours are 3.2% above 2019 levels.

▪ Vienna ACC registered 16.07 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2022, being 4.3% below 2019 levels.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Summary of capacity performance

Austria experienced an increase in traffic from 739k flights in 2021 to 1267k flights in 2022; however, traffic levels were still below the 1,365k flights in 2019.

In 2022, Austro Control had 78k minutes of en-route AFTM delay, up from <1k minutes of delay in 2021. However, in 2019 when Austria had 1365k flights, Austro Control had more than 1530k minutes of delay.

There were an additional 27k minutes of en route ATFM delay originating in the Vienna ACC that were re-attributed to DFS (>17k) and DSNA (>9k) via the NM post operations delay attribution process, according to the NMB agreement for eNM/S22 measures, to ameliorate capacity shortfalls in both Karlsruhe UAC and Reims ACC.

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

Despite ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, traffic started to return with particularly and unexpectedly high figures during the summer period. Staff availability was still impaired by various waves of the pandemic, yet the provision of ANS was not severely impacted.

Capacity targets were met despite the return of traffic, shifted traffic flows due to the Russian war of agression against Ukraine and ongoing COVID effects on staff availability.

Monitoring process for capacity performance

Apart from permanent ATFCM processes in place, monitoring traffic during the strategic, pretactical, and tactical phase as well as post OPS analyses are regularly executed. Furthermore, a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly monitoring of capacity and delay is executed.

Capacity planning

Based on NM TFC predictions (STATFOR, NOP), capacity is planned and managed in terms of sector opening hours based inter alia on human resources and traffic distribution.

Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)

Not data available

Other indicators

N/A

Terminal performance

Arrival ATFM delay (KPI#2)

Austria identified six airports as subject to RP3 monitoring. According to the traffic figures at these 4 airports, only Vienna (LOWW) 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.
Traffic at the ensemble of these airports increased by 58% in 2022 with respect to 2021 but it is still 25% below 2019 levels.

During 2022, arrival ATFM delays in Austria remained very low and ATFM slot adherence improved (2022: 98.8%; 2021: 97.4%) resulting in values above 95% for all airports.

Average arrival ATFM delay in Austria in 2022 was 0.15 min/arr, compared to 0.11 min/arr in 2021.
Only Vienna and Innsbruck registered delays in 2022.
At Vienna (LOWW: 2019: 0.91 min/arr.; 2020: 0.49 min/arr.; 2021: 0.14 min/arr.; 2022: 0.19 min/arr.) 68% of these delays were attributed to weather and 26% to ATC staffing issues.
Innsbruck (LOWI: 2020: 0.18 min/arr.; 2021: 0.09 min/arr.; 2021: 0.17 min/arr.; 2022: 0.17 min/arr.) observed arrival ATFM delays only in January, February and December and were all related to weather.

According to the Austrian monitoring report there were no changes in TFC flows / patterns around airports due to the Russian war.3. Arrival ATFM Delay – National TargetThe national target on arrival ATFM delay in 2022 was met.

All Austrian airports showed adherence above 95% and the national average was 98.8%, an improvement with respect to 2021 (97.4%). With regard to the 1.2% of flights that did not adhere, 0.9% was early and 0.3% was late.

According to the Austrian monitoring report: In general, slot adherence improved again, compared to the previous COVID years and has reached the high standards as before COVID-19.

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
Graz NA NA NA NA 98.5% 98.0% 99.4% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Innsbruck 0.18 0.09 0.17 NA 93.9% 96.5% 95.3% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Klagenfurt NA NA NA NA 97.6% 98.0% 98.4% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Linz NA NA NA NA 100.0% 97.2% 98.3% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Salzburg 0.04 NA 0.00 NA 88.4% 92.3% 95.7% NA% NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Vienna 0.49 0.14 0.19 NA 97.4% 98.1% 99.3% NA% 0.75 0.63 0.92 NA 8.3 9.8 14.6 NA

ATFM slot adherence

Vienna is the only Austrian airport subject to the monitoring of this indicator. The performance has deteriorated (LOWW; 2019: 1.56 min/dep.; 2020: 0.75 min/dep.; 2021: 0.63 min/dep.; 2022: 0.92min/dep.) but remained under 2019 values.
According to the Austrian monitoring report: Performance is stable and improved even in comparison to traffic volumes of previous years, including 2019 and 2018. Main reason is full implementation of Airport CDM since April 2022.

ATC pre-departure delay

Vienna is the only Austrian airport subject to the monitoring of this indicator.
The total (all causes) delay in the actual off block time at Vienna in 2022 increased drastically to 14.60 min/dep. The highest delays per flight were observed from June to August.
According to the Austrian monitoring report: Increasing traffic caused additional ‘All cause departure delays per flight’. No ATC Departure Delays have been applied.

All causes pre-departure delay

No data available: airport operator data flow not established, or more than two months of missing / non-validated data