Capacity - Austria

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PRB monitoring

▪ Austria registered 0.14 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2023 which has been adjusted to 0.12 during the post-ops adjustment process, thus achieving the local target value of 0.17. Delays in Austria increased by 0.05 minutes per flight year-on-year.

▪ Delays were highest between June and October, mostly driven by ATC capacity reasons and adverse weather.

▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Austria decreased by 8 p.p. compared to 2022 and was lower than 2019 values. 

▪ The average number of IFR movements was 8% above 2019 levels in Austria in 2023.

▪ The number of ATCOs in OPS is expected to increase by 7% by 2024, with the actual value being over the 2023 plan in Vienna by 8 FTEs.

▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Vienna ACC was 60,556, showing a 5.8% increase compared to 2022. Sector opening hours are 9.7% above 2019 levels.

▪ Vienna ACC registered 17.33 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2023, being 3.2% above 2019 levels.

▪ Austria registered an average airport arrival ATFM delay of 0.30 minutes per flight in 2023, achieving the local target of 0.84 minutes.

▪ Compared to 2022, average arrival ATFM delays in Austria were 93% higher in 2023, while the number of IFR arrivals increased by 11%.

▪ The main reasons for delays were weather, accounting for 70% of delays, and ATC capacity, responsible for 14%.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Focus on en route ATFM delay

Summary of capacity performance

Traffic increased again in Austria; from 1,267k flights in 2022 to 1,439k flights in 2023 (above the 2019 level of 1,365k flights).

Austro Control had 146k minutes of en-route ATFM delay, up from 78k minutes in 2022 (1,530k minutes in 2019).

There were an additional 11k minutes of delay originating in the Vienna ACC that were re-attributed to DFS via the NM post operations delay attribution process, according to the NMB agreement for eNM/S23 measures, to ameliorate capacity shortfalls in Karlsruhe UAC.

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

Traffic in ACC was particularly high in summer, already partially exceeding 2019 level. Capacity targets were met despite the high traffic demand that significantly exceeded the forecasts and despite the shifted traffic flows due to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.

Monitoring process for capacity performance

Regular monitoring of capacity and delays is executed and analysed on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis.

Capacity planning

Based on NM TFC predictions (STATFOR, NOP) capacity and performance is planned in terms of sector opening hours reflecting ATCO availability and TFC distribution.

Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)

Not applicable, since capacity performance was achieved.

En route Capacity Incentive Scheme

Austro Control: The incentive scheme is under review by the European Commission
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 indicators

Focus on ATCOs in operations

N/A

Terminal performance

Arrival ATFM delay (KPI#2)

Focus on arrival ATFM delay

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 12% in 2023 with respect to 2022 but it is still 17% below 2019 levels.

In 2023, arrival ATFM delays in Austria doubled with respect to 2022, although values are still relatively low and the target is met. ATFM slot adherence remained at 98.8% with values above 95% for all airports.

Average arrival ATFM delay in Austria in 2023 was 0.30 min/arr, compared to 0.15 min/arr in 2022.
Only Vienna, Innsbruck and Salzburg registered delays in 2023.
Vienna drives the national average (LOWW: 2019: 0.91 min/arr.; 2020: 0.49 min/arr.; 2021: 0.14 min/arr.; 2022: 0.19 min/arr.; 2023: 0.32 min/arr.). At Vienna 67% of these delays were attributed to weather, 16% to ATC capacity and 14% to ATC staffing issues.

According to the Austrian monitoring report: Extreme TFC peaks and heavy snow falls early 2023 have caused high ATFM Delays in LOWI and LOWS.
No influence on traffic patterns around airports due to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.

The Austrian performance plan sets a national target on arrival ATFM delay for 2023 of 0.84 min/arr. This target was met with an actual performance of 0.30 min/arr.
According to the Austrian monitoring report, this performance corresponds to the maximum bonus (0.50%), computed by the NSA as 196,154€.

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%	99.1%	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Innsbruck	0.18	0.09	0.17	0.52	93.9%	96.5%	95.3%	95.5%	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Klagenfurt	NA	NA	NA	NA	97.6%	98.0%	98.4%	98.4%	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Linz	NA	NA	NA	NA	100.0%	97.2%	98.3%	98.2%	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Salzburg	0.04	NA	0.00	0.26	88.4%	92.3%	95.7%	96.4%	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
Vienna	0.49	0.14	0.19	0.32	97.4%	98.1%	99.3%	99.4%	0.75	0.63	0.92	0.97	8.3	9.8	14.6	14.7

Focus on performance indicators at airport level

ATFM slot adherence

All Austrian airports showed adherence above 95% and the national average was 98.8%, same as previous year. With regard to the 1.2% of flights that did not adhere, 1% was early and 0.2% was late.

According to the Austrian monitoring report: ATFM slot adherence at all Austrian airports has reached an extremely high and stable value. Especially in LOWW, the CDM procedure - in place since 2022 - has enabled the very high and continuous adherence level.

ATC pre-departure delay

Vienna is the only Austrian airport subject to the monitoring of this indicator. The performance has slightly deteriorated (LOWW; 2019: 1.56 min/dep.; 2020: 0.75 min/dep.; 2021: 0.63 min/dep.; 2022: 0.92 min/dep.; 2023: 0.97 min/dep.) but remained under 2019 values.

According to the Austrian monitoring report: Performance is stable and has been improved even in comparison to traffic volumes of previous years, including 2019 and 2018. Main reason is full implementation of Airport CDM in April 2022.

All causes 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 2023 was 14.74 min/dep., slightly higher than the previous year (14.6 min/dep.)

According to the Austrian monitoring report: Increasing traffic caused additional ‘All cause departure delays per flight’. No ATC Departure Delays have been applied.