Annual Monitoring Report 2025 - Network Manager

Download Report

Network performance plan adopted following Commission Decision (EU) 2022/785 of 17 May 2022

Safety (Network Manager - SES RP4 area)

Effectiveness of Safety Management (EoSM) (KPI#1) and ATFM overdeliveries (PI#1)


  • The NM has established EoSM targets for its Safety Management System in alignment with the RP4 Union-wide targets for 2029. Accordingly, the NM aims to achieve at least Level C for the following safety management objectives: safety culture, safety policy and objectives, safety assurance, and safety promotion, and Level D for safety risk management.

  • For 2025, the NM has defined intermediate EoSM targets to support the progressive achievement of the 2029 objectives. The targets are set at Level B for safety culture, safety policy and objectives, safety assurance, and safety promotion, and at Level C for safety risk management. However, the measurement of these targets is planned only for Q3 2026 and the results are not yet available at the time of publication of this report.

  • Following a significant increase in the over-delivery (OVD) indicator in 2024, the network recorded an overall improvement in 2025, with the OVD indicator decreasing by 0.4 percentage points. The most notable improvement was observed in en route regulations during the summer months, with a reduction of 1.1 percentage points. Among the ACCs with a high number of regulations in 2025, Reims, Beograd, Karlsruhe, and MUAC recorded the most significant reductions in the OVD indicator compared with 2024. Overall, the situation improved compared with both 2024 and the pre-pandemic years. This improvement may be partly attributed to the enhanced monitoring of flight plan execution, which was one of the key network priorities during the summer period. This focus will be maintained and further strengthened in the coming years.

  • The NM has identified unanticipated traffic in the airspace, i.e. traffic appearing in ATC sectors without having been planned, as one of the main contributors to over-deliveries. A significant factor contributing to this issue is flights operating at a different flight level from the one planned. As a mitigation measure, the NM released the Flight Level Adherence Interactive Reporting (FLair) dashboard in 2025. The dashboard provides users with detailed information on flights that did or did not adhere to their filed (requested) flight level at some point during the en-route phase. This enables ANSPs and air operators to identify hotspots of non-adherence to requested flight levels and supports efforts to reduce discrepancies between planned and actual flight trajectories, thereby helping to mitigate unanticipated traffic.

Environment (Network Manager - SES RP4 area)

The en route flight efficiency improvement (KPI#1) and Route extension (PI#1)

  • The KEP target in 2025 was not achieved, with a value of 4.63% compared to a target of 4.59% and an increase of 0.04 p.p compared to 2024. However, the NM reports that 0.09pp of the KEP 2025 value is due to a change in the LTAI arrival procedures (the KEP algorithm captured part of the new arrival trajectory in the en route segment considered for calculation). Without this change KEP would have registered a value of 4.54% an improvement of 0.05pp over 2024 and achieving the target.

  • The inefficiency of the route network design (RTE-DES) improved to 1.59% with a reduction of 0.05 percentage points compared to 2024. This continued improvement demonstrates that progress is being made to make the overall network more efficient.

  • The NM notes that the KES for the NM area remained at 4.43%, not achieving the value of 4.31% within the NPP for 2025.

  • The inefficiency of the flight plan (KEP) and shortest constrained routes (KES) remained much higher than the actual inefficiency of flights (KEA). This suggests that route constraints remain in the planning of flights that are mitigated during the flight. The NM should continue to work with ANSPs, airspace users and flight planning service providers to enable airspace users to plan and fly shorter routes and make best use of the route network design.

Capacity (Network Manager - SES RP4 area)

The en route ATFM delay savings (KPI#1) and the arrival ATFM delay savings (KPI#2)


Other performance indicators (PIs#1-3)

2025 2026 2027 2028 2029
Average daily number of ATM regulatons (producing >200 min) (PI#1) 0.5 NA NA NA NA
Average en route ATFM weekend delay (PI#2) 0.4 NA NA NA NA
Annual percentage of all first rotations ATFM delays with most potential delay reduction (PI#3) 0.3 NA NA NA NA

  • The NM met the 10% target on en route ATFM delay savings by achieving 10.6% savings, equivalent to over 2.2 million minutes of avoided delay. The NM also achieved the 5% target for airport arrival ATFM delay savings, with actual savings of 8.8%, corresponding to more than 700,000 minutes of avoided delay. While the targets were met, both delay savings are slightly lower than those in 2024.

  • Key measures included stronger NOP commitments monitoring, introduction of the new Capacity and Weather Based Operations procedure during summer 2025, improved integration of airports into the NOP plans and measures, and improved discipline in flight plan delivery.

  • Total en route ATFM delay minutes decreased over 2024 in the network by -18%, from 22.7 to 18.6 million minutes, while the number of flights managed in the network grew by 4.3%, from 10.7 to 11.1 million IFR flights. This resulted in a -21.2% decrease in average en route ATFM delay per flight, from 2.12 to 1.67 minutes per flight.

  • There was a reduction in the percentage of IFR flights with ATFM delays above 15 minutes compared to 2024, from 6.4% to 5.3%, while the proportion of IFR flights with ATFM delays above 30 minutes also decreased from 2.5% to 1.8% in 2024 and 2025, respectively.

  • The average daily number of ATFM regulations producing less than 200 minutes of ATFM delay increased compared to 2024, from 69 to 80 regulations, corresponding to a four percentage point increase in the share of such regulations, from 45% in 2024 to 49% in 2025.

  • The average weekend en route ATFM delay per flight in 2025 was 2.16 minutes per flight, 0.41 minutes lower than in 2024, despite an increase in the share of weekend delays to 36% compared to 33% in 2024 and a 5.1% increase in the number of IFR flights during the weekend.

  • The annual percentage of all first rotation ATFM delays for a pre-selection of area control centres/airports with the most significant potential delay reduction was 25.6% in 2025, with a focus on Greek island airports during the summer period. The NM introduced new tools and products to help further reduce reactionary delays in the coming years.

  • There were contradictory changes in network volatility in 2025 compared to 2024. Capacity and staffing volatility, as well as weather-related volatility, decreased; however, volatility caused by ATC industrial action increased and returned to the same level as in 2023.

Cost-efficiency (Network Manager - SES RP4 area)

The unit cost for the execution of the tasks (KPI#1)

  • The cost-efficiency performance indicator for monitoring is the actual unit cost for the execution of the NM tasks. The indicator is calculated as the ratio of actual costs to service units at the level of the geographical area where the Network Manager executes its tasks.

  • The NM’s approved 2025 budget (201.0€) is -2.1M€ (-1.0%) lower than the planned costs (203.1M€). The actual en route service units for the Network area in 2025 (193.1M) is +7.0M (+3.8%) higher than the planned services units (186.1M) (based on STATFOR May 2024 base forecast). The actual inflation index has not been reported by the NM.

  • As a result, the actual unit cost in 2025 for the Network Manager was 1.04€, which is -4.5% lower than the determined unit cost (1.09€).

  • Regarding the investments, the NM noted that a detailed overview would be provided following the audit of the 2025 financial statements.