Sunday, March 20, 2011

A SINGLE MARKET, CURRENCY AND A SINGLE EUROPEAN SKY?


The Single European Sky (SES) enables a single European Airspace through the integrated management of air traffic.

The European Air Travel market has expanded tremendously over the past few decades. Even after various efforts, the Air Traffic Management (ATM) System remains safe but fairly costly and inefficient. The cost of traffic control per flight is almost twice as high in the EU when compared to that in the USA (Lufthansa, December 2010). This initiative effectively breaks these borders and demands a free airspace. A unified approach to Air Traffic Management (ATM) is an essential step before any sort of emissions trading schemes are implemented (Eurocontrol, 2009). The scheme is forecasted to reduce carbon emissions by 16 million tones and save 5 Billion Euros in wasted air traffic management costs (Bateman, 2010).