{"id":488,"date":"2016-01-08T13:04:49","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T11:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=488"},"modified":"2019-07-23T11:47:26","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T09:47:26","slug":"the-single-european-sky-is-it-time-to-use-a-bigger-yardstick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/?p=488","title":{"rendered":"The Single European Sky: is it time to use a bigger (yard)stick?"},"content":{"rendered":"Late last year, the Performance Review Body (PRB) published its summary of the performance of Europe\u2019s ANSPs. Much like the end-of-year school report, it noted each ANSP\u2019s progress by subject (in this case, safety, environment, capacity and cost-efficiency) and identified a number of things to work on.\r\n\r\nIt was a fairly positive message from the headmaster (and Chairman of the PRB) Mr Griffiths, despite many of the targets being missed. The performance of the ANSPs was considered satisfactory given the tight implementation schedule of the Single European Sky (SES) and complexity of ATM. Could do better. Should pay more attention, and talk less in class.\r\n\r\nPerhaps a B- from Mr Griffiths then? Unless you are an airline. In that case you risk wearing out the \u2018F\u2019 key as you give your assessment.\r\n\r\nOne thing that stands out in the report is the disparate performance by the different ANSPs. Targets have generally been set at a Europe-wide level and it is the weak performance of the few that has resulted in these targets being missed.\r\n\r\nTake the capacity target, for example, where the union-wide target for 2014 was 0.5 minutes delay per flight. This was missed, and delays actually increased relative to 2013. Yet out of the 29 states that together made up this target, only five failed to meet their individual targets.\r\n\r\nBut here is the thing.\r\n\r\nWe look at the question of performance like we are the first, and possibly the only, industry that has to address these issues. ATM is not the only industry having to deal with under-performing monopolists. It could learn much from other regulated industries where benchmarking is routinely used to set performance targets and to incentivise improvements in the performance of laggards in the industry.\r\n\r\nBenchmarking has been widely used to drive improvements in performance and incentivise efficiency savings for electricity distribution companies, water suppliers and telecommunication providers. It was even used by the UK CAA to assess Heathrow\u2019s operating expenditure during its last price control review.\r\n\r\nBenchmarking may therefore provide the stick needed to drive the required improvements in European ATM performance.\r\n\r\nHowever, benchmarking for benchmarking\u2019s sake is not the answer, particularly given that ANSPs are already benchmarked pretty thoroughly. The PRB provides an annual 200-page benchmarking study<\/a> of European ANSPs, while CANSO also undertakes benchmarking<\/a> on a global (albeit anonymous) basis.\r\n\r\nIf the benchmarking is to have any significant impact, there needs to be clearer identification of the strongest and weakest performers. You see, it is not the benchmarking that drives results; it is what you do with the results that drive the benchmarking. We need to start naming and shaming. Those who are top of the class get recognition while the weaker performers are hauled into the headmaster\u2019s office to answer some tough questions.\r\n\r\nThe prices charged by individual ANSPs for their services could also be linked to their relative performance. This is what happens in many other regulated sectors. No more Mr Nice Guy, Principal\u00a0Griffith.\r\n\r\nThe ANSPs will no doubt argue that using benchmarking results in this way is risky. After all, they are all different with unique characteristics that can explain any divergence in performance. However, there are tried and tested techniques for taking account of this, and that are regularly used by regulators. We struggle to believe that ANSPs are so different from other regulated monopolies that they cannot be benchmarked in the same way.\r\n\r\nThe idea of being ranked below your peers may be scary, but the performance of European ATM can only improve if each of its ANSPs contributes and is held directly accountable.\r\n\r\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late last year, the Performance Review Body (PRB) published its summary of the performance of Europe\u2019s ANSPs. Much like the end-of-year school report, it noted each ANSP\u2019s progress by subject (in this case, safety, environment, capacity and cost-efficiency) and identified a number of things to work on. It was a fairly positive message from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-traffic-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":500,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviationadvocacy.aero\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}