ENAIRE is preparing 2023 summer season with EUROCONTROL with the forecast of surpassing the air traffic record of 2019

• Spain leads Europe (considering the top 5 European countries) in terms of traffic recovery compared to the 2019 baseline. Traffic in 2023 is expected to surpass the record figures in Spain from 2019, the year with highest traffic ever in Europe.


• The EUROCONTROL Network Manager and ENAIRE teams analysed the positive air traffic results for the 2022 season, and in particular for the summer, when average traffic levels were on par with 2019. EUROCONTROL acknowledged ENAIRE's performance results in terms of service quality, which helped to efficiently recover air transport.


• ENAIRE and the EUROCONTROL Network Manager analysed the projects planned for 2023, including projects to restructure airspace, implement new digital tools to manage traffic, technical projects and the implementation of projects to enhance civil-military coordination.

Iacopo Prissinotti, Director of Network Management at EUROCONTROL, and his team met today with ENAIRE’s CEO, Ángel Luis Arias, and his management team, at a meeting organised by ENAIRE at the Madrid Air Traffic Control Centre.

The goal of the meeting was to jointly review the management of air transport, national and network initiatives to improve operational efficiency and ensure excellence in service provision, with a focus on improving efficiency, service quality and environmental sustainability, all in an effort to enhance safety as an area of action.

At this meeting, the top managers of ENAIRE and EUROCONTROL took stock of the 2022 summer season. Spain is the first European country (considering the top 5 European countries) in terms of traffic recovery compared to the 2019 baseline, having recovered an average of 90% (through the end of September 2022) (87% increase over 2021).

EUROCONTROL acknowledged ENAIRE’s performance results in terms of service quality, which helped to efficiently recover air traffic in Spain. The monthly data is gradually trending toward the figures from 2019, and it is expected that in 2023, the traffic figures for 2019, the record baseline year prior to the pandemic, will be surpassed in Spain.

In October, ENAIRE managed over 190,000 flights (190,810), which is just 0.7% below the average for the entire network for the same month in 2019, the record year for traffic before the pandemic of 2020 and the drop resulting from the COVID crisis.

ENAIRE, through its Air Navigation Services Director, Enrique Maurer, explained to the EUROCONTROL Network Manager the projects for restructuring airspace planned for 2023 and contained in ENAIRE’s Strategic Plan (2025 Flight Plan).

The transition towards the Single European Sky in terms of resilience, scalability, sustainability, efficiency and digitisation, which will help improve airspace management in Europe; and the process of implementing the Single European Digital Sky and the improved measurement of the results obtained, were the other aspects discussed.

Maria Luz de Mateo, Director of Strategy and Innovation at ENAIRE, showed the company’s relevant role in the new SESAR Deployment and Infrastructure (SDIP) consortium, which manages air traffic (ATM) and communications, navigation and surveillance (CNS) projects.

ENAIRE, through its Director of Operations, Xavier Benavent, chairs the Network Directors of Operation working group of the EUROCONTROL Network Manager, which makes decisions involving the design and management of transnational traffic flows, adopts joint measures to mitigate the impact of adverse weather events, and solidifies relationships between different countries and airspace interfaces.

At the meeting, they also analysed the progress in civil-military coordination, its relevance at the strategic level as part of the Air Transport Policy and, in the operational field, the possibility of materialising tools to facilitate the implementation of the Flexible Use of Airspace concept.

At the environmental level, ENAIRE shared the results of the working group with the airline Vueling, which is studying new environmental indicators for the routes flown based on real fuel consumption, the goal being to make them more sustainable and thus help to reduce CO2 emissions, in keeping with the European Green Deal.

ENAIRE also photo