The long-awaited legislative proposal will hopefully be approved by the end of 2021

The European Commission is preparing the next European Research and Innovation Programme. In doing so, the Commission will set up partnerships (including the private sector as well as public entities) in several strategic industrial areas, including for air traffic management.

The weakest levels of ambition in the history of the Single European Sky (SES) Performance and Charging scheme were approved by EU member states this week.

The Netherlands has banned flights from the United Kingdom out of concern for a new mutation of the virus that causes COVID19

Over the last couple of years or so, we have heard many countries, sectors and individual corporations declare that they will be “net-zero” by 2050. Where did this expression come from and what does it mean for us and the Business aviation sector?

While the COVID-19 pandemic has heavily impacted aviation and has caused a severe drop in traffic demand, it is also an opportunity to “build back better” a more efficient, resilient, and sustainable European Air Traffic Management, aligned with the political goals and ambition of the European Green Deal and a Europe that it fit for the digital age. The long awaited SES II + update proposal, published by the European Commission on 22 Sept, is therefore welcomed.

The COVID-19 crisis continues to severely impact the freedom of movements in Europe. Member States unilaterally impose travel restrictions, travel bans, tests and quarantine. This heavily hit the airline industry which has still not fully recovered even during the usually busy summer holiday season. Its traffic remained at around 45% of the 2019 levels.

In these times of crisis, coordination is vital to develop joint solutions which will ease a quick return to normal flight operations.

Europe has been very busy in the past years to reform the way airspace is managed to build a more efficient system.

24 June 2020, Brussels. With the gradual restarting of passenger air transport in the coming weeks, leaders from over a dozen air transport associations representing Europe’s aviation sector today issued an urgent call for EU leaders to prioritise specific decarbonisation initiatives in their allocation of future COVID-19 recovery funding.