Belgocontrol did well in 2017: en-route traffic record and very few delays

The summer holidays were a period of intense activity: 112,330 movements were totalled in July and August, against 108,128 movements during the same period in 2016. This represents an increase of nearly 4%. The monthly volume recorded in July was even the highest in ten years (57,049 movements).

Less than 11 seconds delay per flight

The average en-route delay per flight managed at Belgocontrol’s CANAC2 centre was only 0.18 minutes, or less than 11 seconds per aircraft between January and September 2017. By way of comparison, this is seven times less than the average of FABEC countries’ en-route centres (Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland and EUROCONTROL Maastricht). From January to September, the average en-route delay per flight in FABEC was 1.29 minutes, or more than 77 seconds.

As regards the reasons for delay on which air traffic control has an impact (airspace management, capacity, etc.), Belgocontrol was even the most performing one in FABEC over the first nine months of the year with only 6 seconds delay per flight, for an average of 51 seconds per aircraft in FABEC.

Belgocontrol only generated 0.5% of en-route flight delays in Europe while managing 2% of en-route air traffic in Europe.

Besides the control towers of Belgian airports, Belgocontrol also manages en-route traffic in Belgium and Luxembourg up to 8,000 metres high. Air traffic controllers of the national control centre CANAC2 located in Steenokkerzeel deal with this task and the EUROCONTROL centre in Maastricht takes it over above 8,000 metres.