THE director-general of one of Europe’s leading airline bodies has warned of chronic delays this year for UK carriers.
Mike Ambrose of the European Regions Airlines’ Association said expected growth in passenger numbers of more than 10% for 1999 from regional carriers across the Continent will put pressure on infrastructure.
He said airports and air-traffic control will face unprecedented demand for services, resulting in passengers facing lengthy delays.
“A 1% increase in traffic means a 5% jump in delays,” said Ambrose. “If we have the expected 10% growth in traffic, we can expect a 50% increase in delays.”
He said the ERA and other European airline associations were lobbying countries hard to ensure enough resources were in place to cope with a big jump in demand.
“We need to bully European states to increase capacity to reduce predicted delays, otherwise they will be unsustainable and risk huge damage to the industry,” said Ambrose.
The main cause for concern from the ERA is the ability of air-traffic control to cope with the rise in traffic.
Ambrose proposed that Eurocontrol – which oversees Europe’s air-traffic control – be forced into being more efficient by the introduction of competition.
He said around 20% of European flights were already delayed by up to 20mins through a combination of congestion problems, and this is likely to get alot of worse.
Of the major European airports only Paris Charles de Gaulle is planning significant growth this year, through a new runway and terminal.
Heathrow, Gatwick and Amsterdam Schiphol are already congested and unable to satisfy demands from airlines to serve the airports.
Ambrose said European regional traffic was increasing at double the rate of long-haul services, led by low-cost airlines EasyJet, Ryanair and Go.
The airlines’ success at Luton and Stansted has already lead to these UK airports reporting a deterioration on-time performance figures (Travel Weekly January 13).