Annual Monitoring Report RP3 - Network Manager
Network performance plan adopted following Commission Decision (EU) 2022/785 of 17 May 2022
Safety (Network Manager - SES RP3 area)
▪ The NM planned to achieve level C or above in all Management Objectives other than safety risk management by 2023. For safety risk management, the NM planned to achieve level D in 2024. In 2024, the NM achieved level D in safety policy and objective and in safety risk management and level C for all other Management Objectives. The maturity levels have been verified by EASA. Consequently, NM has achieved the RP3 targets one year before the end of the reference period.
▪ The NM reported that the over-delivery indicator increased from 9.3% in 2023 to 10.4% in 2024. The most notable rise occurred in en route regulation during the June–August period, with levels returning to those last seen in 2017–2019. Not only did the rate increase during this period, also the number of time intervals with over-deliveries was higher. Among the ACCs with a high number of regulations, Karlsruhe, Zagreb, and Vienna experienced a marked increase in the OVD indicator in 2024 compared to both 2023 and 2019.
▪ The NM has, over the years, implemented various actions and initiatives to reduce volatility and improve flight planning (e.g. to remove Yo-Yo flights plans and flight plans with sharp turn angles) and keep airborne flights as close as pos-sible to the flight plan. The objective is to reduce the need for airborne changes to reduce time deviations from the plan and to capture all the flights in regulations as early as possible. The NM should work to further enhance the initia-tives, together with relevant stakeholders, to contain and where possible reduce over-deliveries.
Environment (Network Manager - SES RP3 area)
▪ The KEP target in 2024 was not achieved, with a value of 4.59% compared to a target of 3.73%. This deficit was largely driven by the continued impact of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
▪ The inefficiency of the route network design (RTE-DES) improved to 1.64% with a reduction of 0.15 percentage points compared to 2023. The NM notes that the SCR improved by 0.10 percentage point in 2024 achieving the value of 1.64%.
▪ The additional information provided by the NM to the PRB regarding the Group Re-Routing Tool noted the difficulty of measuring the actual impact of the tool. However, it is estimated that the acceptance of rerouting proposals worsened to 2.8% in 2024. The number of proposals offered decreased from 1000k to 840k. Although fewer flights were proposed, the NM noted that work is ongoing to improve the process and tools to generate route proposals for airlines. This collaboration with airlines and ANSPs continues to support fuel and cost saving, as well as enhancing network predictability and operation-al efficiency. In its 2022 monitoring report, the PRB concluded that further cooperation is nec-essary to fully realise the potential benefits highlighted by the NM. Achieving this should remain a key objective for the NM.
Capacity (Network Manager - SES RP3 area)
▪ Both the target on en route ATFM delay savings and the target on arrival ATFM delay savings were met.
▪ The total number of en route ATFM delay minutes increased further once again after 2023. The NM contributed to saving 11% of the total en route ATFM delay, saving 2.8 million minutes of delay, slightly more than in 2023. While the total amount of delay minutes saved increased, the percentage value was lower compared to 2023 by 0.9 percentage points.
▪ The percentage of IFR flights with ATFM delays above 15 minutes also increased further to 6.4% in 2024, significantly exceeding even pre-COVID levels.
▪ Network volatility related to ATC capacity and staffing issues were at the highest in the last 7 years. Weather-related volatility in the network was also high, further worsened by the ongoing impact of war.
Cost-efficiency (Network Manager - SES RP3 area)
▪ The NM’s approved 2024 budget (141M€2017) is -18M€2017 (-11%) lower than the planned costs (158M€2017). The actual en route service units for the Network area in 2024 (182.3M) is +18M (+11%) higher than the planned services units (164.5M) (based on STATFOR May 2021 base forecast). The actual inflation index (128) was +14 percentage points (or +12%) higher than the determined inflation index used in the NM’s performance plan (114).
▪ As a result, the actual unit cost in 2024 for the Network Manager was 0.77€2017, which is -20% lower than the determined unit cost (0.96€2017).