Iacopo Prisinotti, director general del Gestor de Red.
Members of DATCA (Danish Trade Union) explained that, following the dismissal of 25% of their workforce, assisted by a public relations firm, they managed to gain media and political attention and improved staffing forecasts. Among the imprisoned ATCOs was Flora Ndreca, General Secretary of SPKTA (Independent ATC Union of Albania), who could come to Málaga after being provisionally released pending trial. In a closed session, Flora gave her first-hand account of the events and shared with the attendees the news of her acquittal at first instance in the courts of Tirana the day before the opening of Málaga’s meeting. Unfortunately, by press time we have received news of the Prosecutor’s appeal against the acquittal decision.
INVITED SPEAKERS Despite adverse circumstances, the meeting featured several keynote presentations of great relevance and interest for all workers represented. On beha l f of t he Eur opea n Commission, Herman Nijhuis, from the Single European Sky Unit of the
Despedida de Alfonso Guerrero (USCA) y Jean-Denis Larrere (SNCTA).
Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE), was also present in Málaga. Nijhuis explained the European Commission’s activities and operational modes as regards the development of new regulatory proposals for subsequent discussion and approval by the European Parliament and the Council. DG MOVE facilitates and financially supports the participation of the different actors in the European aviation sector so they can contribute their points of view through three groups: NCP (NSA Consultation Platform), ICB (Industry Consultation Body) and EGHD (Expert Group on the Human Dimension). ATCEUC is a permanent participant both in ICB and EGHD, the former being a representative group of industry stakeholders which aims to guide the European Commission and to provide advice of a strategic nature related to the development of the Single European Sky, while EGHD advises the Commission on aspects that could affect Human Factors in the development and implementation of regulations. On the Eurocontrol side, we had the presence of IacopoPrisinotti, Director of the Network Manager. Iacopo is a
former Director General of ENAV, the Italian ANSP, as well as a former ATCO at the Rome ATC Centre. In his presentation, he outlined the efforts made by the Network Manager to adapt to the huge uncertainties generated by the pandemic by providing Member States’ ANSPs with revisions of operational plans every four to six weeks, made in constant consultation with airlines, airports and service providers. He also shared the results for the summer of 2021, explaining that delay figures were lower than the very high values of 2019 and especially 2018, but by no means negligible, with France accounting for almost half of all delays, followed by Germany and Greece. Looking ahead to the likely recovery of air traffic by summer 2022, Eurocontrol expects a decreased volatility and values closer to 2019 figures, even reaching 100% in some areas of the continent, while intercontinental traffic will remain below pre-pandemic values. Nonetheless, historically, all previous crises in commercial aviation have been overcome with new records of movements, and the Eurocontrol network is expected to reach 50,000 daily movements by 2030, compared to the 2019 peak of 37,000 movements. 110
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