Capacity - Greece

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PRB monitoring

▪ Greece registered 0.15 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2022, thus not achieving the local target value of 0.14.

▪ The average number of IFR movements was 1% above 2019 levels in Greece in 2022.

▪ Traffic is expected to grow dynamically in RP3. The number of ATCOs in OPS is expected to increase by 33% by the end of RP3, however, the actual number of ATCOs in OPS decreased and remained significantly below the 2022 plan.

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

▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Greece increased by 14.12 p.p. compared to 2021 and was higher than 2019 values.

▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Athens ACC was 54,711 in 2022, showing an 10.6% increase compared to 2021. Sector opening hours are 4.2% below 2019 levels.

▪ Athens ACC registered 15.77 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2022, being 5.8% over 2019 levels.

▪ Greece registered an average airport arrival ATFM delay of 1.64 minutes per flight in 2022, not achieving the local target of 0.7 minutes.

▪ Compared to 2021, average arrival ATFM delays in Greece were 0.73% higher in 2022, while the number of IFR arrivals increased by 35.58%.

▪ The main reasons for delays were ATC capacity issues, accounting for 34% of delays, and other, non-ATC related causes, responsible for 36%.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Summary of capacity performance

Greece experienced a large increase in traffic from 569k flights in 2021 to 896k flights in 2022 which was actually above the 884k flights in 2019.

In 2022 Greece had 138k minutes of en route ATFM delay for 896k flights. In comparison, for 884k flights in 2019, Greece had almost treble the delay: 375k minutes.

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

At the operational level, traffic in Greece rose in 2022 compared to 2021 and the planned in 2022, as presented in the Performance Plan.

The actual average en route ATFM delay per flight in 2022 was 0.15 minutes per flight, 0.01 minute per flight above the target (0.14).

The performance was great and gained the plaudits of NM and the State that established a financial bonus from incoming unit rates, but relied solely on it and neglected the planned and promised recruitement of ATCOs, or the replacement /updating of ATM system, leading to the dive of the capacity potential.

Monitoring process for capacity performance

Continuous consultation with relevant division of HASP and exploitation of relevant Eurocontrol data through appropriate tools such as NMIR, NOP, MIRROR ect.

Capacity planning

Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)

Additional Information Related to Russia’s War of Aggression Against Ukraine

As a result of the banning by NOTAM of the DEP flights from Greece to Russia and vice versa, plus the closure of the Ukranian airspace, the respective flows mainly to Greek touristic destinations have ceased, their load alleviated, their incoming service units, too.

What was felt during summer period, when the traffic in Greece is heavier, was some shift of flows to/from Scandinavia and the Baltics to the west sectors, moreover when trying to avoid Polish airspace, heavily impacted by the crisis and producing heavy delays.

Also, some overflights picked Hellas UIR to/from the far East, because of Ukranian closure, as they flew more southern trajectories.

Other indicators

Athens ACC: This includes figures for Makedonia ACC which uses the same sytem and personnel.
Planned recruitement targets have not been met so far, modernisation of infrastructure still pending.

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 2022 was only 6% lower than in 2019 and 36% higher than in 2021.

Average arrival ATFM delays in 2022 was 1.64 min/arr, compared to 1.63 min/arr in 2021. ATFM slot adherence has improved (2022: 94.7%; 2021: 93.9%).

Average arrival ATFM delays at Athens (LGAV: 2019: 3.57 min/arr.; 2020: 0.04 min/arr.; 2021: 1.63 min/arr.; 2021: 1.67 min/arr.) were attributed to ATC Capacity (34%, during the Summer), Aerodrome Capacity (34%, concentrated in October) and ATC Equipment (26%). The aerodrome is neither CDM, nor advanced tower.

The national target on arrival ATFM delay in 2022 was met.

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 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Athens 0.04 1.63 1.64 NA NA 94.5% 93.9% 94.7% NA% NA% 0.03 0.15 NA NA NA 8.0 12.9 17.4 NA NA

ATFM slot adherence

Athens’s ATFM slot compliance was 94.7%, slightly better than in 2021 (93.9%). With regard to the 5.3% of flights that did not adhere, 2.7% was early and 2.6% was late.

Greek NSA reports the use at a larger scale of the electronic facilities ref. the slot values’ updating, offered by NM to Tower ATC & FMPs.

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 two years ago 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.; 2022: 17.44 min/dep.). The highest delays per flight were observed from June to August.

The Greek NSA reports that since LGAV is not CDM or advanced, the AOs file their EOBT without taking into consideration the capacity throughput, causing increased demand during certain time periods of the day. ATCOs in their turn, sequence DEPs so that the global aerodrome capacity is not violated. All the above in relation to the big increase of demand and the increase of the heavy acft arrivals.