Capacity - Greece

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PRB monitoring

▪ Greece registered 0.84 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2023 which has been adjusted to 0.83 during the post-ops adjustment process, thus not achieving the local target value of 0.15. Delays in Greece increased by 0.67 minutes per flight year-on-year.

▪ Delays were highest between April and July, mostly driven by ATC staffing and adverse weather conditions.

▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Greece decreased by 5 p.p. compared to 2022 and was lower than 2019 values.

▪ The average number of IFR movements was 13% above 2019 levels in Greece in 2023.

▪ The number of ATCOs in OPS is expected to increase by 33% by 2024, with the actual value being below the 2023 plan in Athens by 86 FTEs.

▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Greece was 54,081, showing a 1.2% decrease compared to 2022. Sector opening hours are 5.3% below 2019 levels.

▪ Greece registered 17.61 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2023, being 18.1% above 2019 levels.

▪ Year-on-year traffic growth was at 12% in Greece, with IFR movements being 19% above the STATFOR 2021 October Base forecast. Some aspects of capacity provision improved compared to 2022, but the significant lack of ATCOs resulted in a capacity gap in 2023. Greece will have to resolve ATCO recruitment and training issues, as well as carry out the long-planned overhaul of the ATM system to close the capacity gap.

▪ Greece registered an average airport arrival ATFM delay of 3.24 minutes per flight in 2023, thus not achieving the local target of 0.40 minutes.

▪ Compared to 2022, average arrival ATFM delays in Greece were 98% higher in 2023, while the number of IFR arrivals increased by 14%.

▪ The main reasons for delays were ATC disruptions, accounting for 66% of delays, and ATC capacity, responsible for 29%.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Summary of capacity performance

Greece experienced an increase in traffic from 896k flights in 2022 to 1001k flights in 2023.For reference, traffic in 2019 was 884k flights).

En route ATFM delays increased significantly from 138k minutes in 2022 to 827k minutes in 2023. (For comparison, 2019 saw delays of 375k minutes)

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

In the operational level, traffic in Greece showed increase in 2023 both in IFR movments and SU compared to the actual IFR movements and SU of 2022 and the planned in 2023 as presented in the Performance Plan.
The actual average en route ATFM delay per flight in 2023 was 0.83 minutes per flight, 0.68 minutes per flight above the target (0.15).

Capacity showed delays in both en route and terminal. En route capacity target was not met primarily due to ATC staffing and Weather and secondarily by ATC disruprions and ATC capacity. Airport and terminal capacity was not met primarily due to by ATC disruptions, capacity and staffing and secondarily by Weather.

Monitoring process for capacity performance

HCAA took into consideration the regulatory requirements and the evolution of the targets as contained in the approved performance plan , in order to monitor the performance of the ANSPs by means of audits, questionnaires and collection of data

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

Capacity planning

Capacity values are greater than the required performance target. About 70% of total en-route ATFM delays are due to ATCO in OPS shortage (ATC Staffing). Recruitment plan is in progress.

Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)

Recruitment planning of adequate personnel, proper rostering to meet anticipated capapcity and modernisation of infrastructure.

Planned recruitement targets have not been met so far, modernisation of infrastructure still pending.

En route Capacity Incentive Scheme

HASP: According to incentive scheme defined in monitoring report a penalty of 3,187,131 € is due.
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

The ACCs are physically co-located in terms of system and personnel, however the ATC procedures, staff and corresponding infrastructure throughout Greece concern two distinct ACCs.

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.
Traffic at Athens in 2023 increased by 14% with respect to 2022 and it was not only recovered but even 7% higher than in 2019.

Average arrival ATFM delays in 2023 was 3.24 min/arr, compared to 1.64 min/arr in 2022. The national target was not met.
ATFM slot adherence remains close to 95% (2023: 94.4%; 2022: 94.7%).

Average arrival ATFM delays at Athens increased significantly (LGAV: 2019: 3.57 min/arr.; 2020: 0.04 min/arr.; 2021: 1.63 min/arr.; 2022: 1.67 min/arr.; 2023: 3.24 min/arr.), resulting in one of the highest across the SES monitored airports. These delays were attributed mainly to ATC Equipment (66%, caused by RADAR failures according to the Greek monitoring report) and ATC Capacity (29%) followed by Aerodrome Capacity (3%).
Greece reports: About 65% of total ATFM arrival delay per flight occurred from April until June, due to radar malfunction (ATC Equipment). The rest of the delays were attributed to ATC Capacity.

The Greek performance plan sets a national target on arrival ATFM delay for 2023 of 0.4 min/arr. This target was not met in 2023 with an actual performance of 3.24 min/arr.

According to the Greek monitoring report, this performance corresponds to the maximum penalty (1%), computed by the NSA as € 465 521.02.

Greece reports: The 2023 target was not met primarily due to by ATC disruptions. Capacity and staffing and Weather also affected capacity.
The Greek monitoring report also mentions the following recommendation to the ANSP to rectify the situation: Expedition of procurement and implementation of ANS infrastructure and recruitment of appropriate and sufficient personnel.

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
Athens 0.04 1.63 1.64 3.24 94.5% 93.9% 94.7% 94.4% 0.03 0.15 NA 0.08 8.0 12.9 17.4 18.6

ATFM slot adherence

Athens’s ATFM slot compliance was 94.4%, similar to 2022 (94.7%). With regard to the 5.6% of flights that did not adhere, 3.5% was early and 2.1% was late.

ATC pre-departure delay

The quality of the airport data reported by Athens airport is too low, which prevents 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 reporting by Athens improved in 2023 but the share of unidentified delay was still above 40% for many months in the year, so this indicator cannot be calculated.

All causes pre-departure delay

The total (all causes) delay in the actual off block time at Athens increased again in 2023 (LGAV: 2020: 8 min/dep.; 2021: 12.90 min/dep.; 2022: 17.44 min/dep.; 2023: 18.63 min/dep.)