The EUROCONTROL Network Manager's guidance document, "All Together Now 2024," provides flight dispatchers, pilots, air traffic controllers, flow management personnel, and airports with comprehensive instructions to ensure efficient and optimal operations. The document clearly delineates the recommended practices and those to avoid. We strongly urge all stakeholders to adhere to the measures outlined.
Our experience from previous years indicates a rising trend in flights deviating from their flight plans. Specifically, these flights often fail to comply with the Requested Flight Level (RFL) within our airspace, significantly impacting the reliability of both our forecasts and short-term predictions. This leads to high overdelivery scenarios where Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) measures have minimal effect, causing overloads for our Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs) and suboptimal capacity management.
We emphasize the following directives:
- File accurate flight plans as early as possible, and no later than four hours before the
Estimated Off-Block Time (EOBT);
- Avoid using YO-YO vertical profiles in flight plans to circumvent ATFM regulations;
- Keep the EOBT updated;
- Adhere to the filed flight plan, maintaining the specified route and vertical profile unless
deviations are necessary for safety, weather phenomena, ATC instructions, or technical
reasons.
For ATCOs to: Check the RFL and to ask the pilots to confirm if they are able for filed Flight Level and not to give shortcuts or flight level changes unless dictated by specific ATC reasons.
Our mission is to provide adequate capacity for all users and to optimize capacity management by reducing over and under deliveries. Achieving this requires improving the reliability of traffic data.
