Belgocontrol in serious difficulties, 1000 jobs in limbo...

[Nevihta]

Some airlines don't have insurances that allow them to go to uncontrolled fields.
So going uncontrolled would mean loosing some clients.
Unthinkable for LGG and CRL, and I doubt it's possible for OST and ANR as well...

[cnc]

interesting that uncontrolled airport subject, people with more insight in to this?

[tolipanebas]

Even at uncontrolled airports, commercial flights will still need to pay for ATC, notably for the enroute portion of their flight within Belgian airspace, because they may very well take-off uncontrolled, but they'll need to become controlled soon after getting in the air anyway.

It's not because you never park your car in a metered car park, that you don't have to pay road taxes, is it?

[cnc]

how are the approach and departures handled at such airports? lets take OST for example (if OST would become uncontrolled)
a small sports plane going for a landing while there's a MD11 on approach as well. who will give clearance etc?

[tolipanebas]

At an uncontrolled airport, nobody clears you for anything.
At best, you can get traffic information and then it's up to the pilot to decide how to proceed, taking into account the rules of the air regarding priority etc.
As you can already imagine, this isn't exactly something you'd look positively at, so realistically speeking, this is something you can only do at airports which see limited commercial traffic.

[Passenger]

The issue (funding of Belgocontrol) has been discussed shortly in the Belgian Parliament last Thursday.

Wathelet - Secretary of State for Transport said that all regional airports and Brussels Airport will have to pay more, but that it's impossible to attend the funding problem right now for political reasons. For all Belgian state services and public companies, there are 101 top positions to be renewed before the elections of May 2014. The Belgocontrol CEO is one of these political nominations. Therefore, no decision will be taken within Belgocontrol before it's decided who will be the new boss.

Report of last Thursday's discussion in the Parliament (it's in Dutch because it was a Flemish MP who asked something about it):
http://www.dekamer.be/doc/PCRI/html/53/ip143x.html
(see question 12)

[cnc]

would this even be allowed if they wished to go uncontrolled? if you get a collision at antwerp or ostend there's good chance its above a densly populated area

[tolipanebas]

would this even be allowed if they wished to go uncontrolled?

Theoretically, yes, it is allowed to have such airports, but in practice, there's a maximum size to such kind of airports. I suppose Wevelgem is Belgium's biggest uncontrolled airport at present and I have a feeling that you can't make them much bigger than that here from a practical point of view, unless you'd kick out all light aircraft then, to make them 'safer' to the big jets.

However, as already mentioned above: it's really not the tower controller which is costing a lot of money, it's the whole overhead and infrastructure for en route ATC (i.e. radars, VHFs, control centers, ATCOs, weather services, flight plans etc), and so any commercial flight departing from an uncontrolled airport should pay for all that too: the tower controller really is just a tiny little fraction of the cost, so getting rid of him and going 'uncontrolled' is not a magical solution: starting to pay for the full costs, is.

[cnc]

btw correct me if i'm wrong but i do recall at both OST and LGG small private charter flights had to go pay belgocontrol before departure

[Atco EBBR]

However, as already mentioned above: it's really not the tower controller which is costing a lot of money, [...]

Good to know...

Some interesting figures:

Losses by belgocontrol due to (2012):
- non-indexation of tariffs at EBBR since 2003: 7,8 mio €
- non-paid services at regional aerodromes: 17 mio €
- services to exempted flights: 3 mio €

Add that all up and Belgocontrol would be making a profit...

[Nevihta]

btw correct me if i'm wrong but i do recall at both OST and LGG small private charter flights had to go pay belgocontrol before departure

Weren't they going to pay at the Flight office, or at the handler ?
When aircraft come once in a while, airports prefer to have money before they leave.
I remember TNT wanting to fly outside controlled airspace for sightseeing (charity funding), and there were problems as they are not allowed by insurance company to fly outside controlled airspace.
There are things quite difficult to see when flying, such as gliders. Flying in controlled airspace gives you protection against other traffic.

Regarding Belgocontrol, there are many costs (based on political decisions, or inherited from the past) that prevent it to be profitable. One might consider as well that Belgocontrol receives subvention when loosing money, if ever they would become profitable, you might imagine what would happen to those subventions.

[cnc]

Weren't they going to pay at the Flight office, or at the handler ?

hm yes flight office is possible, i'm sure it was not handling

[jan_olieslagers]

it's really not the tower controller which is costing a lot of money, it's the whole overhead and infrastructure for en route ATC (i.e. radars, VHFs, control centers, ATCOs, weather services, flight plans etc),

This is out of my area of knowledge, so I am quite willing to accept it. But didn't I always understand that "en route" ATC was charged per flight anyway? That is certainly what I hear from IFR G/A pilots, they make some big trip across half or even all of Europe, and expect invoices for enroute handling in the next couple of months. Perhaps the bigger takers (i.e. the airlines) could have wholesale deals with ATC providers, that would make sense, but the cost should be controllable in all cases.

I always believed Belgocontrol could and can trace every flight handled en route, and did and does charge accordingly. It was my understanding that the uncontrollable and unrecoverable part of their operations and cost was, at regional airports, the terminal services they provide - these are close to impossible to relate to the flights handled. Meaning indeed the tower and meteo staff, perhaps even the "C" office though I think this is provided by the a/d operator.

[luchtzak]

Belgocontrol management says: mission accomplished ! (in Dutch only, no time for translation)

http://www.tijd.be/nieuws/ondernemingen ... 9-3085.art

[jan_olieslagers]

I see my idea confirmed:

Dat tekort aan inkomsten compenseerde Belgocontrol tot 2010 met de zgn. 'en-route' inkomsten,

Belgocontrol made up for the loss of revenue through "en route" income. (my translation)
Thus confirming that the loss of revenue is not in en-route services, so it must be in terminal services, i.e. staff at the regional airports.

[tolipanebas]

I see my idea confirmed:

Dat tekort aan inkomsten compenseerde Belgocontrol tot 2010 met de zgn. 'en-route' inkomsten,

Belgocontrol made up for the loss of revenue through "en route" income. (my translation)

Thus confirming that the loss of revenue is not in en-route services, so it must be in terminal services, i.e. staff at the regional airports.

I think you have a wrong view of what constitutes 'en route income' to Belgocontrol:
it is not just 'income from services rendered off airport to flights departing from or arriving at an airport in Belgium', but it goes much wider to 'income from services rendered to flights not even landing at nor departing from Belgium'.

This difference is important to note, because what Belgocontrol has been doing for long -and which they no longer can do due to EU intervention on this- is overcharge flights OVERFLYING Belgium in order to cover increased operating costs due to the massive expansion at the regional airports.
d'Arenberg illustrates it quite nicely with this example: 'Het is logisch dat British Airways dat van Londen naar Frankfurt vliegt niet mee moet betalen voor een landing van Ryanair in Charleroi'

Belgocontrols problem however is that it can not pass on their increased operating costs to all of its Belgium bound customers either because of political decisions preventing them to do so, so they are left with a cost for services rendered to flights which are exempted from paying for those costs and those services are obviously not just limited to the terminal services you think are at the basis of the problem.

In short: flights departing from regional airports are not only NOT paying the full cost for the terminal services at their point of departure, they are also NOT paying the full cost of their en route services (weather reports, flight plans, radar control, flight coordination with other sectors etc) within Belgian airspace....

Which is why your suggestion to go 'uncontrolled' at the regional airports isn't going to solve the problem, as it may reduce the operating costs at the regional airport all right, but it isn't going to cover the operating costs of all the other stuff for which flights departing from there aren't paying the full costs at present: in fact it might very well increase the latter even because much more coordination and oversight is going to be needed to incorporate previously uncontrolled traffic into a strictly controlled airspace structure 'en route'....



As to your other question why ANR costs twice as much as OST, despite the latter being brigger, open 24 hours a day and having an approach control too: it's precisely because of what I have explained above.
The cost are not so much the opening hours nor the fact there's an approach controller next to the tower controller on duty. What it's all about is the number of movements and the economic reality that normally each movement should cover part of the total overhead and infrastructure costs of Belgocontol to the point that all flights combined cover at least the full cost of Belgocontrol. At present however, none of the regional airports are doing that since they aren't living up to the economic reality and the result is that Belgocontrol is deep in the red because it it still asked to pick up bills of others, yet it can no longer as easily pass them on as it did before.

[Atco EBBR]

they are also NOT paying the full cost of their en route services (weather reports, flight plans, radar control, flight coordination with other sectors etc) within Belgian airspace....

Are you sure about this? I always thought that they did pay in full their en route charges... (but I'm not sure)

[tolipanebas]

they are also NOT paying the full cost of their en route services (weather reports, flight plans, radar control, flight coordination with other sectors etc) within Belgian airspace....

Are you sure about this? I always thought that they did pay in full their en route charges... (but I'm not sure)

They pay what they are asked for, so as such they pay the full charges, but it's not enough to cover all additional expenses Belgocontrol has to make to accomodate the ever increasing traffic to the regional airports and the resulting increased complexity of the Belgian airspace, so they do not cover the full costs of the services rendered to them...

[Airbusvsboeing]

Is this where a difference has to be made between enroute and terminal charges?

[Nevihta]

There are others parameters to explain financial problems...
Explaining it only via regional airports is too simple.
Consider for example that Belgocontrol delegates the airspace above FL245 to Eurocontrol...
Who has to pay for the Flight info service for example ?
Who has to pay for the meteo (Belgium must be the only country with 3 meteo services ins such a small country)?
Who has to pay for crossing traffic (VFR...) that don't land, but use service.. ?

PS : Belgian airspace was complex before development of regional airports.