- Air traffic control causes over 90pc of EU airline delays according to Ryanair
- ATC providers have immunity from prosecution for delays they cause
- Training takes 18 to 20 months in Ireland or England but five years in France
- A4E calls for ATC providers to face same penalties airlines face
- England’s NATS system experienced two collapses in two months
Michael O’Leary of Ryanair is describing Eurocontrol as unfit for present and future requirements during the Airlines for Europe briefing in Brussels. Air traffic control causes over 90pc of EU airline delays according to the carrier executive. Airlines are obliged to pay right-to-care costs and delay compensation when flight delays exceed three hours.
O’Leary shared that air traffic control providers have immunity from prosecution for delays they cause. He shared that capacity shortages were rising despite no shortage existing in the European air traffic control network. The shortage was people not showing up to work particularly on Saturdays and Sundays and for first wave departures.
The briefing heard that A4E has called for reform of recruitment and training of air traffic controllers. Training takes between 18 and 20 months in Ireland or England but five years in France. O’Leary shared that ATC providers should face the same penalties airlines face including EU261 compensation and right-to-care costs. Protection of overflights during national ATC strikes was also required. England’s NATS system experienced two collapses in two months.
Michael O’Leary shared: Mrs von der Leyen, our glorious leader, has spent the last two years talking about competitiveness and has done absolutely nothing about it. “Useless” would be the appropriate summary of her delivery on competitiveness. And there are some very simple wins here. Fix air traffic control in Europe. We have a united position on air traffic control, which is that it’s not fit for the present or for the future. Air traffic control causes over 90pc of EU airline delays, 90pc. We are obliged as airlines to pay right-to-care costs and delay compensation when flight delays are over three hours. The legislation says we can recover that from whoever caused the delays, except in the case of air traffic control, where they all have immunity from prosecution.
The people who are causing all the delays are immune from the expenses that arise from these delays. We the airlines are obliged to pay for the compensation and our right-to-care measures. Capacity shortages are rising. There is no shortage of capacity in the European air traffic control network. The shortage is people not showing up to work, particularly on Saturdays and Sundays and particularly for the first wave of flight departures. They just won’t show up to work. In the airlines, we roster standby pilots and standby cabin crew on a daily basis so that if for some reason some pilot or cabin crew doesn’t feel well or has some problem getting to work, we have standbys there. So we don’t delay or cancel flights. Air traffic control have nothing. They have no standby staff available in the morning.
So why is there a significant spike in capacity delays on Saturdays and Sundays, particularly during the summer season? Because they don’t show up to work. Do they suffer any sanction as a result of that? Not at all. They probably get rewarded with a further pay increase. And we are the ones left carrying the cost of this inefficiency. And yet Europe will do nothing about it. A4E has called for a number of reforms. One: we need to reform recruitment and training of ATCOs.
When ee hire an air traffic controller in Ireland or England; it takes between 18 to 20 months to train them and put them to work. In France, it takes five years. Now, they’re not slow, they’re not stupid in France. But why the hell does it take five years to train an air traffic controller in France? And also, they’re hemmed in by budgets. They don’t have a five-year budget, so they can’t recruit people for ATCOs to come online in three, four, five years’ time. They only have a budget for this year.
So we know we have a problem. Flights are going to continue to grow. The availability of flights continues to grow. But we are not recruiting and training sufficient ATCOs to service these flights. The call from A4E is: we should fully staff the first wave of daily flights or the ATC providers should face the same penalties the airlines face, EU261 compensation and right-to-care costs. We should be allowed to recover our costs from whichever ATCO doesn’t provide us with the capacity on a Saturday or a Sunday morning.
And there’s no way of getting them to do that unless you penalise them. Secondly, we’ve called for protection of overflights during national ATC strikes. And again, no action from Mrs von der Leyen on this or any of the other simple proposals, many of them addressed by Draghi in the Draghi Report, which is now two years old and is gathering dust on a shelf in her office. Lastly, we need a functioning backup system. We’ve had two collapses in the last two months of England NATS system. And yet the CEO of NATS, Martin Rolfe, told the House of Commons Transport Committee three years ago during the previous collapse: We will have an effective backup. This won’t happen again. This is a once-in-a-lifetime.It isn’t. It’s about a once-a-month occurrence in England. The system is crap
it’s interesting that today in 2025 we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the founding of A4E in 2016. And for each of the last 10 years, this slide has barely changed. Eurocontrol is not fit for the present and nor is it fit for the future
