A report highlights that the number of flights in Europe will fall by 1.3% this year compared to 2011. David Marsh, Head of Forecast and Traffic Analysis at Eurocontrol blames of this fall to the weakness of the European economy and the fuel price.

Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, has published its latest edition of Medium Term Forecast of European Flights (2012-2018). According to this report, the number of flights in Europe is set to fall by 1.3% this year compared to 2011, reflecting the continent’s economic problems and the recent surge in fuel prices. Recently, Eurocontrol also published a report in which had identified a number of key safety areas to improve in air navigation.

Flights in European airspace are foreseen to fall by 1.3% or from 9.8 million in 2011 to 9.7 million in 2012. The previous forecast predicted a growth of 2.5% over the same time period. This is the second dip in the annual number of flights since the economic crisis of 2009. David Marsh, Head of Forecast and Traffic Analysis at Eurocontrol stressed that from 2013 onwards, growth is predicted to return slowly but it could take until 2014 before the all-time peak level of 2008 of 10 million flights a year, is reached again.

Jacques Dopagne, Director of Network Management at the same Agency, added that the traffic downturn will decrease the pressure on the delay target and put more emphasis on flight efficiency. He also highlighted that the performance targets will be less demanding but we will have to take great care to avoid that airlines are in addition hit by delay costs at peak hours.