Air traffic management in the South East European countries. Current situation and prospects

Abstract

This paper deals with the Air Traffic Management (ATM) situation in the South East Europe (SEE) countries. The current status indicates that the SEE air space users require increased capacity, higher flexibility and improved cost efficiency. On the other hand, some of these countries were in a war situation a few years ago, and now they are seeking a regional cooperation to ensure regional stability and prosperity towards their integration to the European Union. The paper starts with a description of the cooperation schemes, already in operation in the area. Then the attempt to converge the ATM of the region towards the EU Single European Sky is investigated. The FABA (Functional Airspace Block Approach), a European Union (EU) initiative, applied in the SEE is presented in detail. In the continuation, the paper reports on the definition phase of the SEE FABA initiative, which is to provide a well founded basis for the reorganisation of the SEE air space into FAB's. It is concluded that the FAB solution stemming from the EU Single European Sky policy is feasible, highly beneficial and necessary for the SEE region development.