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ANNUAL REPORT 2010
AVINOR NORWAY – NORWAY
PREPARING TO MEET THE CHALLENGES OF THE SINGLE EUROPEAN SKY
Quartz+Co
The aviation industry has undergone dramatic changes over the last decade, in particular airlines. Now, the time has come to air traffic services. In 2004, EU launched the Single European Sky Initiative (SES), which is an ambitious transformation programme encompassing the entire air traffic management industry. The SES objective is to cut air traffic management costs by 50% before 2020 along with an ambition of tripling the airspace capacity, improving safety by a factor of 10 and reducing the environmental impact by 10%. Reaching these goals is critical for having a competitive European air transport sector in the future. To fulfil the SES objectives, fundamental changes of the air traffic management industry are required. Structural changes, new solutions and cross-border collaboration among national service providers are examples of such changes. This will alter the current industry logic as we know it. With the implementation of the SES package II in March 2009, the real change process has taken off. A new industry landscape is emerging Today’s fragmented upper airspace (divided into the boundaries of national borders) will be replaced by large cross-border airspace blocks. To realise the potential efficiency gains of the new airspace, the Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) need to collaborate and consolidate their businesses. This consolidation does not affect tower services, which in contrast will be affected by deregulation and competition in the future. In some countries this is already a reality, as in Sweden where a privately owned tower service company won the bidding contest for the tower services at three regional airports at the first open tender in Sweden in the autumn of 2010. A situation that will spread to Norway and the rest of Europe in the future. It is clear that SES will impose significant challenges for all European ANSPs. But, the changes will also create new, interesting opportunities. Proactively facing the new reality Avinor, a state-owned Norwegian company, is providing air traffic services in Norway and operates 46 Norwegian airports. More than 40 million passengers depend on their services each year; a figure that is expected to grow over the next couple of years. , due the characteristics of the network with many small airports, it is challenging to keep the unit cost for air traffic services competitive. Rather than being reactive to the changes in the industry, Avinor has taken a stand not only to proactively work with new and more efficient solutions together with other ANSPs and technology providers, but also to look for more efficient ways internally to provide their services. Together with eight other ANSPs – LFV (Sweden), Naviair (Denmark), Finavia (Finland), ISAVIA (Iceland), LGS (Latvia), IAA (Ireland) and NATS (UK) – Avinor is working to establish one single airspace block for the service area covered by these members. The aim is to provide seamless, cost-effective service to customers across the entire airspace, in line with Single European Sky, and this is expected to be in place by the end of 2012.
In addition, Avinor has conducted a pre-study assessing the potential of a new operating model for tower services, “Remotely Operated Towers”. This concept changes the way tower services are provided and is in particular suitable for airports with relatively few aircraft movements. In short, the service is provided remotely from a tower central through the use of technology (camera, sensors, etc.) instead of having air traffic controllers working locally at each airport. The concept is brand new, but not yet certified. Thus, a lot of challenges still remain before it becomes operational. To ensure the long-term sustainability of the Norwegian airport system and a competitive unit cost, the remote tower concept might be a key solution. Avinor’s ambitions are clear: they wish to take a leading role in the transformation of the air traffic services in Europe and in fulfilling the SES objectives, creating an efficient European air transport sector. So the journey continues.
ABOUT Avinor is responsible for planning, developing and operating the Norwegian airport network and operates 46 airports in Norway, thereof 12 in co-operation with the armed forces. Operations also include air traffic control towers, control centres and technical infrastructure for aircraft navigation. Avinor has around 3,000 employees and is a limited company, 100% government owned. Each year, approximately 40 million passengers travel through Avinor’s airports. AIRPORTS IN NORWAY OPERATED BY AVINOR
SVALBARD
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