The 12th meeting of the CEO Committee of the Functional Airspace Block Central Europe (FAB CE CEOC) was held in Zagreb today, and for the first time chaired by Dragan Bilać, Director General of Croatia Control Ltd.
The establishment of nine functional airspace blocks in Europe is a part of the EU initiative for the creation of the Single European Sky independent of state borders, aiming to increase safety, cost management efficiency and capacities, as well as to reduce delays in air traffic. It is currently the most significant initiative implemented in the field of air traffic under the auspices of the European Commission.
The FAB CE was established within the common initiative of seven Central European countries (Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, Hungary, The Czech Republic and Slovakia) and respective air navigation service providers (ANSPs), following the conclusion of the FAB CE Agreement in 2011 and its ratification by the Croatian Parliament in April 2012. In addition to the Framework Agreement, a number of cooperation agreements have been concluded between ANSPs (Croatia Control Ltd with six partners), as well as between national supervisory bodies (The Croatian Civil Aviation Agency with six partners).
One of the major commitments in the FAB CE cooperation of ANSPs is the development of a common Performance Plan for a 5-year period, including the management of safety, capacities, environment and costs relating to air traffic. This cooperation covers different fields: the training of air traffic controllers, optimisation of particular services aiming to increase efficiency, modernisation of air navigation systems in compliance with interoperability requirements and other fields.
The Single European Sky also includes the provision of cross-border services, i.e. the services in the airspace of other states, which implies market competition of service providers in Europe, with their performance as the fundamental criterion.
