Capacity - Greece

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PRB monitoring

▪ Greece registered 0.98 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2024, which has been adjusted to 0.97 during the post-ops adjustment process, thus not achieving the local target value of 0.15. Delays in Greece increased by 0.14 minutes per flight year-on-year.

▪ Most of the delays were generated between May and September, mainly driven by ATC Staffing issues.

▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Greece decreased by 4 percentage points compared to 2023 and was lower than 2019 values.

▪ The average number of IFR movements was 22% above 2019 levels in Greece in 2024.

▪ The number of ATCOs in OPS is 175, being below the 2024 plan in Athinai/Makedonia by 110 FTEs.

▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Greece was 56,167 showing a 3.9% increase compared to 2023. Sector opening hours are 1.7% below 2019 levels.

▪ Greece registered 18.31 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2024, being 22.7% above 2019 levels.

▪ The deterioration in the capacity performance of Greece in 2024 is a direct consequence of the under-investment in ATM systems and the significant lack of ATCO resources. Greece must prioritise and deploy the investments enabling capacity improvements and expedite the recruitment and training of controllers. These issues are still apparent in the 2025 performance up to August.

▪ Greece registered an average airport arrival ATFM delay of 3.46 minutes per flight in 2024, thus not achieving the local target of 0.20 minutes.

▪ Compared to 2023, average arrival ATFM delays in Greece were 7% higher in 2024, while the number of IFR arrivals increased by 12%.

▪ The main reason for delays was ATC capacity, accounting for 94% of total delays.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Summary of capacity performance

Greece experienced an increase in traffic from 1001k flights in 2023 to 1075k flights in 2024. For reference, traffic in 2019 was 884k flights). En route ATFM delays increased significantly from 827k minutes in 2023 to 1047k minutes of en route ATFM delay in 2024. (For comparison, 2019 saw delays of 375k minutes).

There were an additional 4k minutes of ATFM delay originating in Greece that were re-attributed to the DFS (2k) and HungaroControl (<2k) via the NM post operations delay attribution process, according to the NMB agreement for eNM/S24 measures, to ameliorate the capacity shortfall in Karlsruhe UAC and udapest ACC.

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

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

Monitoring process for capacity performance

Daily monitoring regarding the correct implementation of the ACCs’ scheduled sector configurations (as depicted in the RP3 relative NOP). Overload in 2024 did generate capacity-related delay but was mitigated thanks to the additional availability of ATCOs in line with the summer 2024 incentive scheme, the high tactical flexibility and advanced ATFM techniques (including STAM & extensive use of occupancy counts).

Capacity planning

The observed inconsistency is mainly due to the large increase in air traffic in Greece in 2024 combined with the severe shortage of ATC personnel (more than 80% of the en-route ATFM delays were assigned to the reason ATC Staffing).

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: The NSA reports that the actual en route capacity performance for 2024 merits a financial penalty of €3 487 966 for the ANSP.
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 2024 increased by 12% with respect to 2023 and it was significantly higher than in 2019 (+20%).

Average arrival ATFM delay in 2024 was 3.46 min/arr, compared to 3.24 min/arr in 2023. The national target was not met. ATFM slot adherence remains decreased (2023: 94.4%; 2024: 92.4%).

Average arrival ATFM delays at Athens increased again in 2024 (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.; 2024: 3.46 min/arr.), resulting in the third highest across the SES monitored airports. These delays were attributed mainly to ATC Capacity (94%) followed by ATC Equipment (3%) and Aerodrome Capacity (2%).

Greece reports that the observed inconsistency is due to:
1. the large increase in the arrival traffic in LGAV in 2024 (10,5% more compared to 2023),
2. the local pre-trial A-CDM operational procedures in force at the airport,
3. the fact that LGAV was not coordinated or schedules facilitated in 2024.

Airport and terminal capacity was not met primarily due to ATC capacity and staffing and secondarily due to ATC disruptions and Weather. Planning and actual recruitment of adequate personnel (mainly ATCOs), proper rostering to meet anticipated demand and modernisation of infrastructure. Planned recruitment targets have not been met so far, modernisation of infrastructure still pending.

The Greek performance plan sets a national target on arrival ATFM delay for 2023 of 0.2 min/arr. This target was not met in 2023 with an actual performance of 3.46 min/arr.

According to the Greek monitoring report, this performance corresponds to the maximum penalty (1.5%), computed by the NSA as EUR400632.33.

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 3.24 3.46 94.5% 93.9% 94.7% 94.4% 92.4% 0.03 0.15 NA 0.08 1.52 8.0 12.9 17.4 18.6 19.5

ATFM slot adherence

Athens’s ATFM slot compliance was 92.4%, 2 points below the performance in 2023 (94.4%). With regard to the 7.63% of flights that did not adhere, 5.27% were early and 2.36% were late.

ATC pre-departure delay

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 along the entire RP3 was 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 2024 (LGAV: 2020: 8 min/dep.; 2021: 12.90 min/dep.; 2022: 17.44 min/dep.; 2023: 18.63 min/dep.; 2024: 19.53 min/dep.).