Capacity - Sweden

Download Report

PRB monitoring

▪ Sweden registered 0.01 minutes of average en route ATFM delay per flight during 2024, which remained 0.01 after the post-ops adjustment process, thus achieving the local target value of 0.08. Delay levels in Sweden remained unchanged year-on-year.

▪ Delays were highest in June and July, due to adverse weather conditions.

▪ The share of delayed flights with delays longer than 15 minutes in Sweden increased by 7 percentage points compared to 2023 and was higher than 2019 values.

▪ The average number of IFR movements was 22% below 2019 levels in Sweden in 2024.

▪ The number of ATCOs in OPS is 145, being below the 2024 plan in Stockholm by 28 FTEs. The number of ATCOs in OPS is 137, being below the 2024 plan in Malmo by 19 FTEs.

▪ The yearly total of sector opening hours in Stockholm ACC was 29,458, showing a 2.8% decrease compared to 2023. Sector opening hours are 33.5% below 2019 levels. The yearly total of sector opening hours in Malmo ACC was 48,815, showing a 11.8% decrease compared to 2023. Sector opening hours are 15.1% below 2019 levels.

▪ Malmo ACC registered 9.57 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2024, being 5.0% below 2019 levels. Stockholm ACC registered 10.47 IFR movements per one sector opening hour in 2024, being 13.1% above 2019 levels.

▪ Sweden registered an average airport arrival ATFM delay of 0.07 minutes per flight in 2024, thus achieving the local target of 0.15 minutes.

▪ Compared to 2023, average arrival ATFM delays in Sweden were 78% lower in 2024, while the number of IFR arrivals increased by 1%.

▪ The main reason for delays was weather, accounting for 91% of total delays.

En route performance

En route ATFM delay (KPI#1)

Summary of capacity performance

Sweden experienced an increase in traffic from 636k flights in 2023 with 7k minutes of en route ATFM delay, to 659k flights in 2023 with just 6k minutes of en route AFTM delay.

For reference, in 2019, Sweden handled 831k flights with 35k minutes of en route ATFM delays.

NSA’s assessment of capacity performance

On the domestic market for aviation, the international flights experienced growth while the domestic market was very weak and declining.

Operational issues. The restricted airspace over Russia continued to bring down the Service unit levels during 2024. Also the conflict Israel/Lebanon canceled flights to/from Sweden, and there was likely an effect of the overflights aswell to some extent.

The KPI target is met. The traffic has to be taken into consideration, where the volumes has been significantly lower. However the performance has been excellent and the ANSP has caused no delays, the minor delay occurrences are due to weather.

Monitoring process for capacity performance

SE NSA monitors through the yearly AMR process, aswell as continously via ansperformance.eu and through the NOP-documentation. Where there are questions from the NSA, they are directed to LFV. In-depth analysis are carried out when considered relevant, and especially in the process of Reference period planning.

Capacity planning

For evaluation of the capacity planning during RP3 it has to be re-called that the actual traffic was lower than forecast applied for RP3. During 2024 the traffic was ~ 15 percent lower so this of course is one explanatory parameter. However to some extent new routes, especially around Kaliningrad added on complexity in 2022. Regardless of the mentioned parameters for assessment, the capacity performance has been very satisfactory. For RP4 the targets ranges from 0,18 down to 0,11 in 2029. From RP4 Sweden will apply a modulation to the incentive scheme based on NOP.

Application of Corrective Measures for Capacity (if applicable)

Not applicable

En route Capacity Incentive Scheme

LFV: With an actual capacity performance of 0.01 minutes per flight, against a target of 0.08, Sweden reports that the ANSP is due a bonus of SEK 15 957 300
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 number of ATCOS turns out lower than planned, according to lower succes rate of ATCO students, ATCOs leaving LFV and ATCOs retiring in advance. This was made possible without capacity problems, since the traffic volumes turned out lower than estimated and the volume of parential leave was far beyond recent years depending on the demographics of the ATCOs.

With less parential leave, fewer ATCOs employed are needed to reach the same number of FTEs.

Terminal performance

Arrival ATFM delay (KPI#2)

Sweden only has Stockholm (ESSA) airport subject to RP3 monitoring for which the APDF is successfully established and the monitoring of the capacity indicators can be performed. Traffic at this airport in 2024 was still 18% lower than the 2019 levels, with a small increase of 1% with respect to 2023.

Average arrival ATFM delay in 2024 was 0.07 min/arr, lower compared to 0.30 min/arr in 2023 or 0.09 min/arr in 2022. The national target was met. ATFM slot adherence remained very high (2023: 97.8%; 2023: 98.6%).

Average arrival ATFM delay at Stockholm in 2024 decreased with respect to the two previous years (ESSA: 2022: 0.09 min/arr; 2023: 0.30 min/arr; 2024: 0.07 min/arr) 91% of these delays were attributed to Weather and 9% to Aerodrome Capacity.

According to the Swedish monitoring report: Almost all arrival delay into Arlanda caused by adverse weather (snow/CB activity). 2023 was a year with a lot of adverse weather conditions in Stockholm TMA. Some small arrival delays were caused by AD Capacity (non-ATC). There were no changes affecting capacity in Stockholm TMA due to Russian war, and no arrival delay into Arlanda caused due to Russia’s war on Ukraine. Arrival delay in 2022 was caused mainly by adverse weather, some minor ATC staffing and minor ATC technical incidents. For 2024 there is nothing to report.

The Swedish performance plan sets a national target on arrival ATFM delay for 2024 of 0.15 min/arr. This target was met with an actual performance of 0.07 min/arr. The NSA calculates a bonus of SEK 2078.

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
Stockholm/Arlanda 0.00 0.00 0.09 0.30 0.07 98.2% 97.9% 97.8% 97.8% 98.6% 0.06 0.13 0.13 0.12 0.11 8.3 11.5 15.1 14.7 11.6

ATFM slot adherence

Stockholm’s ATFM slot compliance in 2024 was 98.6%, a slight improvement with respect to previous years. With regard to the 1.4% of flights that did not adhere, 0.6% were early and 0.8% 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 Stockholm.

The annual value slightly decreased with respect to previous years but it is still higher than before the pandemic (ESSA: 2019: 0.09 min/dep; 2021: 0.13 min/dep; 2022: 0.13 min/dep; 2023: 0.12 min/dep; 2024: 0.11 min/dep)

All causes pre-departure delay

The total (all causes) delay in the actual off block time at Sweden decreased in 2024 (ESSA: 2020: 8.34 min/dep.; 2021: 11.48 min/dep.; 2022: 15.14 min/dep.; 2023: 14.65 min/dep.; 2024: 11.6 min/dep.)

According to the Swedish monitoring report: The delays were mainly caused by adverse weather conditions.