Annual Monitoring Report RP3 - Italy
Contextual information
National performance plan adopted following Commission Decision (EU) 2022/773 of 13 April 2022
List of ACCs 4
Brindisi ACC
Milano ACC
Padova ACC
Rome ACC
No of airports in the scope of the performance plan
≥80’K 5
<80’K 0
Share of Union-wide traffic (TSUs) RP3 8.7%
Share of Union-wide en route costs RP3 9.8%
Share en route / terminal costs RP3 87% / 13%
En route charging zone(s)
Italy
Terminal charging zone(s)
Italy Zone 1
Italy Zone 2
Main ANSP
• ENAV
Other ANSPs
• ITAF
MET Providers
–
Traffic (En route traffic zone)
▪ Actual IFR movements for Italy grew on average by +2.0% per year between 2019 and 2024.
▪ In the RP3 revised performance plan IFR movements were forecasted to remain stable (-0.1%per year). Planned traffic was in line with the STATFOR October 2021 base forecast.
▪ Italy reached the 2019 pre-pandemic traffic level in 2023.
▪ Actual en route service units for Italy grew on average by +3.2% per year between 2019 and 2024.
▪ Actual service units grew faster than planned in the RP3 revised performance plan (+2.3% per year). Planned traffic was in line with the STATFOR October 2021 base forecast.
▪ A total of 41,686K actual service units were recorded over RP3, +4.9% above the aggregated planned value (39,746K).
Safety (Main ANSP)
▪ ENAV achieved the RP3 targets in 2020 ahead of plan and maintained its safety performance throughout RP3. The achieved maturity levels exceeded the planned maturity levels with two management Objectives at maturity level D (Safety Risk Management and Safety Assurance).
▪ Italy recorded an increase in the rate of runway incursions (RIs) and separation minima infringements (SMIs) relative to 2023. The NSA has established a process to monitor reported RIs and SMIs on a daily basis. Regular meetings are held between the NSA and the ANSP to analyse these events, with a particular focus on identifying trends and underlying factors.
Environment (Member State)
▪ Environmental performance in Italy deteriorated during RP3. KEA increased from 2.85% in 2020 to 3.03% in 2024.
▪ Italy didn´t achieve the KEA target in any year of RP3.
▪ The NSA did not note the main factors contributed to KEA deteriorating in their monitoring reports for RP3.
▪ KEP improved from 4.42% to 4.17%, while SCR remained stable during RP3.
▪ The share of CDO flights deteriorated from 40.83% to 30.99% during RP3.
▪ Additional taxi out time deteriorated from 2.07 to 3.77 min/flight and additional time in terminal airspace deteriorated from 0.94 to 1.70 min/flight during RP3.
Capacity (Member State)
▪ Italy accumulated a total of 2,030,829 en-route ATFM delay minutes within the RP3 timeframe, reaching the highest level of total delay minutes generated in 2024. During RP3, Italy accounted for 3.69% of the total delays at Union level. Compared to RP2, total delay minutes increased by 1681%.
▪ Italy met its en-route ATFM delay targets in 2020 and 2021, and failed to meet them in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
▪ In RP3, the main drivers of en-route ATFM delays in Italy were Weather (57%) and Other, non-ATC causes (28%).
▪ Over RP3, 40% of delayed flights in Italy experienced delays longer than 15 minutes, representing a decrease of 24 percentage points compared to RP2.
▪ In Italy, the total number of ATCOs in OPS over the RP3 period increased by 56 FTEs, representing a 6% increase compared to 2019. Italy exceeded the planned ATCO numbers by 16 FTEs by the end of RP3.
▪ Italy accumulated a total of 212,259 arrival ATFM delay minutes within the RP3 timeframe, reaching the highest level of total delay minutes generated in 2024. Compared to RP2, total terminal delay minutes decreased by 30%.
▪ In RP3, the leading drivers of arrival ATFM delays in Italy were Weather and other non-ATC related causes, representing 67% and 29% of total delay minutes.
Cost-efficiency (En route/Terminal charging zone(s))
▪ Over RP3, the en route actual unit cost of Italy was lower than the determined unit cost for every year of the reference period, due to a combination of higher than expected traffic levels and lower total costs.
▪ En route actual total cost for RP3 (2,934M€2017) were lower than determined (by -164M€2017, or -5.3%). This difference in total costs was mainly driven by lower staff costs (-81M€2017, or -5.2%) recorded by ENAV. However, in nominal terms, staff costs were higher than planned (by +14M€2017, or +0.9%). In addition, other operating costs were lower than determined by -53M€2017 (-13%), mainly due to cost containment measures introduced during the pandemic years.
▪ The total RP3 en route regulatory result for ENAV amounted to 438M€. This is +251M€ higher than the ex-ante regulatory result. The difference is mainly attributable to the application of the cost-sharing mechanism resulting from the positive inflation adjustment due to higher than planned inflation. The regulatory result amounted to 15% of the total en route revenues, while the ex-ante regulatory result amounted to 6.8% of the total planned en route revenues.
▪ Over RP3, the terminal zone 1 actual unit cost of Italy was lower than the determined unit cost for every year except 2022, and lower every year for the terminal zone 2.
▪ Terminal zone 1 actual total costs for RP3 (151M€2017) were lower than determined (by -6.7M€2017, or -4.2%). Terminal zone 2 actual total costs for RP3 (275M€2017) were also lower than determined (by -16M€2017, or -5.5%). As for en route, this is mainly driven by lower staff costs in real terms, and lower other operating costs.
▪ The total RP3 terminal zone 1 regulatory result for ENAV amounted to 29M€, or 17% of total revenues. This is +8.5M€ higher than the ex-ante regulatory result (20M€ or 12% of the terminal zone 1 revenues). The difference is mainly attributable to the application of the cost sharing mechanism resulting from the positive inflation adjustment due to higher than planned inflation.
▪ The total RP3 terminal zone 2 regulatory result for ENAV amounted to 52M€, or 16% of total revenues. This is +30M€ lower than the ex-ante regulatory result (22M€ or 7.3% of the terminal zone 2 revenues). The difference is mainly attributable to the application of the cost sharing mechanism resulting from the positive inflation adjustment due to higher than planned inflation.
▪ Italy should ensure that any excessive regulatory result, including excess funds received by the ANSP due to the inflation mechanism, is either reinvested to improve the quality of services delivered to airspace users or reimbursed to them.