To further underline their commitment to collaborating on aviation’s successful and sustainable future, ACU Europe’s Director General, Olivier Jankovec, and Eurocontrol’s Director General, Eamonn Brennan, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to enhance their co-operation in working towards aviation’s stability, safety and sustainability.
ACI Europe’s Jankovec said: “For Europe’s airports, recovering from COVID-19 and the imperative to ‘Build Back Better’ means chasing every opportunity to increase their operational efficiency and reduce their environmental footprint. Over the past years, Eurocontrol has come to play an increasingly important role in supporting not just airports but the whole aviation eco-system in that direction. The challenges we face in progressing further and the interconnected nature of aviation means enhanced collaboration and integration are key. This is precisely what this new agreement between ACI EUROPE and Eurocontrol is about.”
The MoU replaces an existing agreement from 2008 and builds on a framework of co-operation based on two pillars: efficient air transport and sustainable air transport.
The former will be achieved through increased integration between operations at and around airport platforms and air traffic management, moving to collaborative decision-making. This is integral to have operations on time and to make better use of existing capacity and unlock latent capacity. It will ultimately result in a one-on-one information exchange between the Network Operation Plan (NOP) and Airport Operation Plan (AOP) and will be delivered via ACI Europe and its airport members as well as the Eurocontrol Network Manager and the continued participation of Eurocontrol in ACI Europe’s Technical, Operations and Safety committee.
Meanwhile, sustainable air transport will be addressed through the continued development and reach of the Airport Carbon Accreditation programme and the continued rollout of Eurocontrol’s Collaborative Environmental Management (CEM), which provides process guidance through which airports are able to reduce their environmental impact in close co-operation with operational stakeholders.
Brennan emphasised that Eurocontrol is focused on supporting European aviation and is working closely with airports to deliver enhanced operational efficiency and sustainable solutions as we recover from the pandemic.
“Flights were down 44% last year across Europe to 6.2 million, whilst at the same time passengers numbers were down 59% – a loss of 1.4 billion,” he said. “Time and again our organisations have shown that working together in areas as diverse as innovation, R&D, urban air mobility and optimising performance at all levels reaps even greater benefits for aviation. We look forward to strengthening our collaboration even further for the benefit of the wider aviation network as a whole.”
