Despite the current economic crisis, European passenger traffic is expected to increase from the current 10 million per annum to 20.4 million by 2030, a report has forecast.
In its study, Challenges of Growth, Eurocontrol also forecasts that 20 of the largest airports in Europe will be saturated by 2030, with 11 per cent of flights not being accommodated on the ground. This sends a strong warning about the need for the European Union to align capacity on the ground with capacity in the air.
Eurocontrol believes that demand in the long term is still set to rise despite the economic downturn and prospect of slower growth in the short term brought about by maturing European markets and higher fuel-related costs.
As a consequence, airports are going to run out of space, and – according to David Marsh, Manager of Forecasting and Statistics – "with half of each day's flights going through one of the saturated airports, a small delay at one airport could rapidly escalate to infect the whole European air network".
One flight in two faces congestion, delays and cancellation by 2030, Eurocontrol said. As a result of the lack of airport capacity and climate change, one flight in two will risk delays or cancellation at highly congested airports, it added.
The study finds that even taking the economic downturn into account, demand for flights in Europe will rise from 10 million today to 20.4 million in 2030. Even though airports are working to make the most of their capacity and expanding to meet demand, on current plans, they will only be able to handle 18.1 million of those flights, leaving 2.3 million a year or 6,300 flights a day unaccommodated. That equates to 170 million passengers being affected each year.
As a result, airport congestion is set to rise substantially. By 2030, about 20 of the largest airports will be saturated, that is to say operating at full capacity for eight hours or more a day.
The risk of delay will be higher because weather-related delays are likely to be more common, Eurocontrol said. "Bouts of extreme weather will occur more frequently and probably be more severe, bringing further disruption to already saturated airports," it said.
As higher temperatures become the norm across Europe, holiday patterns are likely to change. While airlines will be able to change their routes to cope with this, airports, which require substantial infrastructure, are not so flexible.
Unusually persistent fog allied with freezing conditions caused three continuous days of virtually zero activity at the London region airports in early December 2007 and a cold snap in the same period this year promises much of the same, the study said.
"Although that is hardly symbolic of global warming, the other side of the equation is the prediction that large parts of southern Europe, and especially the still highly popular Spanish Costas, will become too hot to live in, never mind take a vacation at, within 50 years. Similar claims have been made about the Gulf states," Eurocontrol said.
Marsh said: "Prosperity in Europe relies on the smooth movement of people and goods, and the air transport industry has a key role to play in this. Whatever capacity can be delivered at airports, the outlook is for a heavily congested future.
"Thanks to climate change, demand may be elsewhere than today. We need to start thinking of an agile air transport network, one that brings together people and technology so that it can react effectively both as the day's events unfold and as demand changes by the year, unencumbered by the 20th century concerns of national borders: a real Single European Sky, an agile pan- European system, if we are to cope with the challenges of the future."
While there are new airports opening or set to open in Spain (Ciudad Real, Castellon, Murcia, Lerida), and plans for them (mainly of the low-cost variety) in several others like Portugal (Lisbon), France (Nantes), Italy (Frosinone), Poland, Turkey and Ukraine, there is the reality of the decision on the third runway at London Heathrow being put back yet again, well into 2009.
And many doubt this critical project for London will ever see the light of day now.
ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec said: "The implications are clear. European airports need to be in a condition to develop further their infrastructure. For many of them, getting the licence to grow is an increasingly uphill struggle. Despite ever-evolving and genuinely ambitious environmental activities, airport capacity is becoming the flashing light that many local and national governments are all too reluctant to address.
"This also means that European airports already need to invest more in new facilities. This is no small challenge, particularly in the present economic and financial conditions."
Source: AFP
