Ryanair initiative - does it make sense?

The problem of limited airspace capacity and the resulting delays are becoming an increasing challenge for airlines and European air navigation service providers (ANSPs). Airlines are increasingly expressing their frustration with the lack of action to improve the situation, while ANSPs attribute the problems to the shortage of qualified staff, especially air traffic controllers (ATCOs).

In Poland, in the performance plan for the reference period RP4 for the years 2025-2029 submitted for consultation, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency (PANSA) clearly emphasizes that increasing the number of air traffic controllers is crucial to cope with the growing traffic in the coming years. PANSA emphasizes that to ensure adequate airspace capacity in the long term, it is necessary not only to maintain the current number of ATCOs, but also to significantly increase their employment.

Ryanair initiative

One of the airlines that has been most vocal in raising the issue of limited capacity and delays resulting from the shortage of staff is Ryanair. The carrier has repeatedly stressed that the delays generated by so-called "staffing delays" (delays caused by staff shortages) are extremely costly for airlines. In its public statements, Ryanair has consistently demanded a change in the approach to this problem and appealed for "protection of flights and freedom of movement of residents of the European Union, especially during air traffic controllers' strikes".

As part of its activities, Ryanair has gathered broad public support - over 1.1 million passengers signed the petition "Protect overflights: keep EU skies open", thus expressing their fatigue with delays and calling for more effective airspace management during strikes.

In May 2024, EUROCONTROL published the PPR2023 - Performance Review Report, which included a detailed analysis of air traffic management in Europe. The document draws attention to serious problems related to delays, which were particularly severe in 2023. Air traffic controller strikes, mostly in France, have caused as many as 3 million minutes of delays.

En-route delays in 2023 were the second highest in the past 20 years, surpassing even 2019 levels, even though air traffic in 2023 was still 8.5% lower than before the pandemic. These statistics show that the air traffic management problem requires urgent action to prevent further disruptions to European airspace.

Ryanair clearly indicates in its “ATC Ruined Our Holiday” campaign that the main problem with flight delays in Europe is the lack of staff in air traffic control (ATC) services. The carrier emphasizes that European air traffic control centers are chronically understaffed, which leads to mass delays and cancellations. Ryanair points out that despite the rising fees for ATC services (an increase of 21% compared to pre-pandemic times), airlines, and therefore passengers, do not receive adequate quality services in return.

Is it only the lack of staff in ATC services that is the main cause of delays or are there other factors that should be taken into account?

Digging deeper

In its campaign, Ryanair focuses on the shortage of air traffic controllers and their inefficient planning as the main sources of problems with flight delays. This approach may seem natural, it is partly based on the official ANSP narrative, but analyzing the problem at this level may not take into account the full complexity of the situation. Ryanair focuses on the effects, while the causes of delays are much more complex and go deeper.

A key factor is the fact that the number of air traffic controllers needed is not arbitrarily determined, but results from the capacity of the airspace sectors and the regulations on maximum working time at the operational position. In addition, these factors depend on the legal framework, political decisions and the so-called "social dialogue", which has a significant impact on working conditions and employment. Therefore, the problem of delays requires multi-dimensional solutions, which will include not only increasing the number of controllers, but also optimizing the entire air traffic management system.

Capacity

Air traffic flow and capacity management (ATFCM) and airspace management (ASM) are a fundamental part of air traffic management (ATM). According to the Aeronautical Information Publication published by PANSA (AIP Polska ENR1.9), ATFCM is a service aimed at ensuring a balance between the demand for space reported by users and its capacity by using all available means and coordinating appropriate actions.

The concept of 'sector capacity' is a broad issue. It is the result of three elements: human resources (the number of air traffic controllers and their level of training and competence), technology (especially the level of technological advancement of air traffic management systems) and operational procedures (including the architecture of airspace and the characteristics of air traffic flows in a given sector). The value of this parameter determines the number of aircraft that can be serviced in a given section of space, in a given unit of time. The value of sector capacity sets the limit after which it should be stopped from allowing further aircraft into a given space or another sector should be opened to service increased air traffic. In the Single European Sky (SES), the rules for defining sector capacities are not standardized, which results in a far-reaching freedom in their determination.

This is primarily due to the fact that members of the air traffic controller profession are striving to reduce the number of operational hours and workload in the workplace while at the same time to maintain high salaries. Until binding rules for determining the capacity of air sectors in Europe are standardized, it cannot be expected that each newly trained air traffic controller will significantly reduce delays. The problem lies not only in the number of controllers, but also in the way airspace capacity is managed, which is often not fully optimized. In the current system, attempts to increase efficiency are sometimes presented as a threat to safety, which makes it difficult to implement changes.

Efficiency

The number of air traffic controllers has been a topic of discussion in Europe for many years, becoming a kind of currency in the negotiation of costs incurred by airlines. In this context, the European Commission, Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), trade unions and carriers often point to ATC staff shortages as the main cause of delays and rising operational costs. Despite this intense debate, the question of the real significance of a new “licence” in air traffic control services and how effectively a controller is used in an operational position is rarely, if ever, raised. This issue is almost completely ignored, although it is crucial for optimizing work and thus increasing the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of air traffic control services in European airspace. On the one hand, the number of positions may increase, but without consistent management of human resources that meets real operational needs, this will not necessarily translate into reduced delays and more efficient operations.

The principles of planning and performing flight operations in an operational position, as well as any attempts to optimize these processes, are a kind of taboo in the industry. Even the slightest suggestions for changes in work planning or the way duties are performed, or the nominal value are often met with resistance by air traffic controllers. The key response of this professional group to any proposed changes to the work system is to state that this may threaten the air traffic safety. “Safety” is a magical and timeless argument that effectively blocks further discussion and silences all participants in the debate. The word “safety” has become a kind of “bogeyman” that politicians, some media and public opinion fear. The strong position of European air traffic controllers’ unions means that any discussion on the optimization of human resources management processes in air traffic control is immediately rejected. Politicians and the top ANSP managers supervised by them prefer to maintain social peace, because airlines will pay anyway. This phenomenon poses huge challenges when implementing any solutions that would improve the efficiency of air traffic control services and the efficiency of the entire European air traffic management system.

In addition to sector capacities, the issue of controller efficiency is another unregulated and unstandardized area. There are no two air navigation service providers (ANSPs) in Europe that have identical regulations regarding the availability of air traffic controllers to work in an operational position. Each EU Member State defines controller working time differently and applies it in locally accepted nominals. The permissible workloads, fatigue policies and resulting staff planning principles are defined in a non-standard way. Activities considered dangerous to air traffic in one ANSP, just across the border, may be a sanctioned rule or everyday practice. Total chaos.

The result of the above is the impossibility of determining the real value of the aforementioned "currency".

According to data from the Polish Ministry of Infrastructure, the operational working time of air traffic controllers in selected EU and EFTA member states is as follows:

- French Republic (DSNA) – average 32 to 36 hours per week,

- Federal Republic of Germany (DFS GmbH) – average 34 to 38 hours per week,

- Kingdom of Spain (ENAIRE) – average 35 hours per week,

- Swiss Confederation (SKYGUIDE) – average 35 hours per week,

- Kingdom of the Netherlands (LVNL) – average 38 hours per week,

- Republic of Austria (AUSTROCONTROL) – average 39 hours per week,

- Republic of Lithuania (ORO NAVIGACIJA) – average 40 hours per week.

- Republic of Poland (PANSA) – average 30 hours per week.

The mechanism

The focus in Ryanair's initiative on the number of air traffic controllers and the avoidance of the above issues raises questions. The surprise is all the greater because this airline is the largest user of the Boeing 737 - an aircraft symbol of the fight against union interests. Social organizations today, as they were 50 years ago, use identical mechanisms.

Few people remember that the most popular narrow-body aircraft today (11,861 units produced by August 2024) almost did not enter series production. This was due to the low interest in the new aircraft on the part of American airlines fearing the reaction of... trade unions.

In the 1960s, passenger plane flight crews typically consisted of at least three members. The Boeing B737, using the latest technical solutions at the time, was designed from the outset to be operated by a two-person crew. This assumption was met with a boycott by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA). The union pointed out that the number of tasks in the cockpit made it impossible for two people to perform them, which posed a threat, of course, to air traffic safety. The situation was saved by the decisive attitude of the manufacturer and the FAA, which, after a long series of tests and test flights, decided in December 1967 to issue a certificate for the B737-100 and B737-200. The seriousness of the situation is additionally evidenced by the fact that the B737 was the first Boeing aircraft for which the role of launch customer fell to an airline outside the United States, the European Lufthansa.

Does it make sense?

The example of the B737 from the 1960s shows how close it was for the epochal passenger plane project to end its life without leaving the drawing board. In industries where employment is subject to a number of training and certification requirements, the threshold of resilience of companies and institutions to social unrest is significantly lowered. Organizations defending the rights and privileges of employees, like 5 decades ago, will also today oppose actions aimed at reducing the demand for the work of represented personnel. Regardless of whether it is a 33% smaller crew of an aircraft, Single Person Operations (SPO) on an airport tower or increasing sector capacities. Standardization and automation will always be the opposition to the infinite demand for personnel.

As long as Ryanair does not start asking about the efficiency and productivity of controllers in its initiative and pushes for increased sector capacity and a significant increase in the level of automation of ATC services, there is no chance of achieving the goals of this action. Both the Irish carrier and other airlines on the old continent seem to have forgotten what was at the heart of the Single European Sky (SES) proposed in the late 1990s. SES was nothing more than an agreement between the European Community and passengers, an agreement to guarantee a reduction in the costs of ATC services and an increase in airspace capacity by 2020. Meanwhile, instead of the above, passengers received delays in 2023 on a scale unimaginable two decades earlier. Trade unions gained the opportunity to checkmate regulators not only in individual countries, but also at the pan-European level. The case of the Boeing B737 did not lead to drawing conclusions.

We are witnessing another round of planning the costs that will be collected from airlines as part of navigation fees. ANSPs regularly emphasize that the investments paid for by carriers, and thus de facto passengers, are aimed at improving airspace capacity. However, the aspect of reducing the number of controllers in favor of investing in technologies that optimize air traffic management processes, which could reduce the dependence on human work, rarely appears in this discussion. On the contrary, the pressure to increase the employment of controllers is growing, which in turn will generate ever higher costs of air traffic control services. This narrative, based on the need for a constant increase in the number of air traffic controllers, seems to be uncritically accepted by customers of these services. Airlines, repeating the need to hire more controllers like a mantra, at the same time call for further increases in costs, which are ultimately passed on to passengers, to the delight of air traffic controllers unions.