Croatia Control Awarded by European Commission

Yesterday afternoon Croatia Control (CCL) received the Single European Sky Award 2017 for the multinational project South-East Axis Free Route Airspace (SEAFRA). The award was given by the European Commission to the partners involved in the project, namely to CCL, BHANSA, and SMATSA, with in total five projects awarded among 36 applications from 35 countries.
 
“This award is an important recognition for the project which was implemented in cooperation with our partners from the neighboring states — SMATSA and BHANSA. The project has introduced, for the first time in Europe, free route airspace over the territories of four states: Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro. Besides the substantial fuel savings for airlines, we have also enabled significant emission reductions in CO2 and NOx,” said Dragan Bilać, CCL’s Director General, as he received the award at the World ATM Congress held in Madrid.
 
The project was implemented on December 8, 2016, thus enabling the airspace users (airlines) to freely plan and conduct flights H24 above 9,900 m no matter of the state airspace or AoR boundaries, which have remained the same. To be more precise, airlines can plan their flights directly between the entry and exit points in the airspace without classical routes.
 
The aim of the project is to enhance the safety and efficiency of air navigation services, and to contribute to the protection of environment by reducing fuel consumption and the emissions of greenhouse gases. Namely, by shortening the routes by 1.05 million nautical miles, airlines can save 3.4 million kg of fuel per year and reduce CO2 emissions by 11 million kg and NOx emissions by 40 tons.
 
The project will be presented by Eurocontrol today, which will be followed by the signing of the Memorandum of Cooperation for the Implementation of the South East Common Sky Initiative (SECSI) which will, besides SEAFRA, i.e. the airspaces of the four countries, include Austrian and Slovenian airspaces (SAXFRA). That way, by the middle of next year, FRA will be implemented above the territories of six states on the South East Axis, which will contribute to a significant improvement of the airlines’ services, since a lot of the European air traffic occurs exactly above the six states, en route from Southwestern Europe towards the Middle East.
 
Also, CCL will present itself at the Madrid fair (World Air Traffic Management Congress), March 7-9, at the COOPANS Alliance booth, which is the leading example of industrial partnership in Europe and cooperation between five air navigation service providers from Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, and Croatia, which received the SES Award last year for the harmonized air traffic management system.