European Commission Group seeks to reform European air traffic control

The European Commission Wise Persons Group on European Air Traffic Control has published 10 recommendations to reform air traffic control that aim to reduce increasing delays to consumers by taking a central network management approach under Eurocontrol and implementing capacity contracts with national ATC providers. The recommendations, which are set out below, have been welcomed and supported by Ryanair, which has suffered losses due to ATC delays. Europe suffered 19.1 million minutes of ATC delays in 2018 (+105% on 2017), of which 60% were caused by ATC staff shortages and 15% due to ATC strikes.  Eurocontrol estimates delays to double