Capacity - Italy

PRB monitoring

▪ Italy registered 0.22 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2022 which has been adjusted to 0.15 minutes during the post-ops adjustment process, thus not achieving the local target value of 0.11.

▪ The average number of IFR movements was 9% below 2019 levels in Italy in 2022.

▪ The number of ATCOs in OPS is expected to increase in all ACCs, except for Rome by the end of RP3. In Brindisi, Padova and Rome ACCs, the actual values remained below the 2022 plan, while in Milano ACC the actual value was in line with the 2022 plan.

▪ Delays were highest between July and October, mostly due to adverse weather conditions and ATC Capacity issues.

▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Italy decreased by 5.2 p.p. compared to 2021 and was lower than 2019 values.

▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Roma ACC was 89,114 in 2022, showing a 25.2% increase compared to 2021. Sector opening hours are 0.3% below 2019 levels. The yearly total of sector opening hours in Milano ACC was 75,567 in 2022, showing a 42.9% increase compared to 2021. Sector opening hours are 3.9% below 2019 levels. The yearly total of sector opening hours in Brindisi ACC was 64,087 in 2022, showing a 35.1% increase compared to 2021. Sector opening hours are 5.6% below 2019 levels. The yearly total of sector opening hours in Padova ACC was 55,657 in 2022, showing a 41.4% increase compared to 2021. Sector opening hours are 10.4% below 2019 levels.

▪ Roma ACC registered 8.56 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2022, being 10.3% below 2019 levels. Milano ACC registered 7.57 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2022, being 7.8% below 2019 levels. Brindisi ACC registered 8.98 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2022, being 10.2% below 2019 levels. Padova ACC registered 7.76 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2022, being 8.1% below 2019 levels.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Summary of capacity performance

Italy ACCs experienced an increase in traffic from 1 020k flights in 2021, with 54k minutes of en route ATFM delays to 1 664k flights with 254k minutes of delay after the NM post operations delay attribution process.
(An additional 109k minutes of en route ATFM delay was attributed to other ANSPs as part of the eNM/S22 measures agreed at the NMB (68k from ENAV to DFS; 41k from ENAV to DSNA).)

However, traffic levels were still substantially below the 1,962k flights in 2019, for which there were 32k minutes of en route ATFM delay.

En route ATFM delays in 2022 were attributed to ATC Capacity (29%); ATC industrial action (14%) and adverse weather (57%).

The amount of delays attributed to adverse weather in 2022 were 144k minutes. In 2018, with 1 753k flights, there were 16k minutes of attributed weather delay; in 2019 with 1 831k flights, there were 15k minutes of ATFM delay attributed to adverse weather.

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

The year 2022 was a period of intense and constant recovery in air traffic volumes, with air traffic levels recorded in August and October that were higher than the corresponding periods of 2019, the pre-pandemic year.

Contributing factors included the gradual easing of restrictions associated with the health emergency and the renewed propensity to travel, as well as the change in European routes, due to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which led to large, long-haul aircraft, mainly flying from the eastern quadrants, to fly over Italian airspace, with a consequent greater development of flights.

Monitoring process for capacity performance

Monthly monitoring and analysis of the operational performance at Country and single ACC level is carried out by ENAV. Checks are made against the value of ATFM generated delay per month and its exepcted trend across the year.

At the beginning of summer 2022 a disputation process was initiated by ENAC in respect of NM to acknowledge the erroneous attribution to Italy of some enroute ATFM delays. The outcomes of the reconciliation process showed improvements in the initial figure of Capacity KPI #1 as presented by PRB in the current table (0.22 m/f) as follows:

Capacity ENR KPI #1, which includes ATFM all-reasons of delay: 0,15 min/flight
Capacity ENR PI#1, which solely includes the ATM reasons of ATFM delay: 0,04 min/flight.

In 2022 there were four reasons of Enroute ATFM delay: Weather (56.6%), ATC Capacity (29.3%), Industrial Action (13.8%), Other (0.3%). As such, the “ATM” reasons only counted for 29.3% of the overall delay assignment.

Capacity planning

No data available

Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)

No data available

Other indicators

N/A

Terminal performance

Arrival ATFM delay (KPI#2)

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 Milan Linate, with more than 60% of the reported delay not allocated to any cause.
Traffic at the ensemble of these Italian airports in 2022 is still 18% lower than in 2019, but increased 71% with respect to 2022.

Average arrival ATFM delays in 2022 was 0.07 min/arr, compared to 0.03 min/arr in 2021.
ATFM slot adherence has slightly deteriorated (2022: 96.1%; 2021: 96.8%).

The national average arrival ATFM delay at Italian airports in 2022 was 0.07 min/arr.
80% of all delays at Italian airports were attributed to weather and 12% associated with industrial action mostly at Milan Malpensa.

According to the Italian monitoring report: it is important to show the figures that really contributed to the achievement of the ATM performance. Below there are the figures for the Terminal and airport ANS ATFM arrival delay per flight indicator which limited to ATM-only reasons of ATFM delay:
National level:
LIMC: 0.00 m/f
LIME: 0.00 m/f
LIML: 0,02 m/f
LIPZ: 0,00 m/f
LIRF: 0.00 m/f3. Arrival ATFM Delay – National TargetThe national target on arrival ATFM delay in 2022 was met.

All Italian airports showed adherence above 94% and the national average was 96.1%. With regard to the 3.9% of flights that did not adhere, 2% was early and 1.9% was late.

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
Fiumicino 0.02 0.00 0.04 NA 98.0% 98.1% 96.5% NA% 0.64 0.89 1.55 NA 6.4 9.2 14.9 NA
Linate 0.06 0.03 0.13 NA 96.1% 96.9% 98.0% NA% 0.05 0.06 0.38 NA 5.1 7.8 11.2 NA
Malpensa 0.02 0.05 0.09 NA 97.3% 97.2% 97.7% NA% 0.36 0.64 1.18 NA 17.8 20.1 23.5 NA
Orio Al Serio 0.04 0.07 0.08 NA 94.8% 96.1% 93.9% NA% 0.52 0.77 1.14 NA 8.0 12.5 21.4 NA
Venice Tessera 0.16 0.04 0.04 NA 90.0% 94.2% 92.8% NA% 0.85 0.68 1.15 NA 9.8 12.0 20.1 NA

ATFM slot adherence

The performance at all four Italian airports where this indicator can be calculated has deteriorated in 2022 and are all among the highest values for this indicator in the SES monitored airports.

The quality of the airport data reported by Milan Linate 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.

ATC pre-departure delay

The total (all causes) delay in the actual off block time at Italian airports has increased in 2022. The highest pre-departure delays were observed at Milan Malpensa (LIMC: 2022: 23.51 min/dep) followed by Bergamo (LIME: 2022: 21.37 min/dep) and Venice (LIPZ: 2022: 20.06 min/dep). The worse delays were registered in June and July at all these airports.

All causes pre-departure delay

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