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Network Operations Overview |
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When you travel by air in Europe,
the EUROCONTROL Central Flow Management Unit(CFMU), in close collaboration with all its partners located in 40 countries across Europe, takes care of your flight.
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Your flight needs available routes, as well as available capacity at airports and air traffic control centres, to ensure that it is safe, punctual and that it does not cost too much (for you and for our planet).
This is a huge challenge, because air traffic is growing all the time. The figures speak for themselves: air traffic flows increased by 33% over the last twelve years and they are expected to double by 2025.
The air traffic network in 1989 and in 2015.
(EUROCONTROL's Challenges of Growth 2008 study report)
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In close cooperation with our partners: air navigation service providers - through 40 dedicated Flow Management Positions, the aircraft operator community and the airport and military authorities, we make sure that the flows of air traffic in Europe are as efficient as possible.
In practice, "CFMU Operations" is the single entry point which collects all flight plans (which are the intentions to fly) in Europe. We build a pan-European network view that we share with the local units responsible for air traffic control and we come up with solutions that optimise the handling of traffic flows according to the available capacity.
This is done both on the day of the flight and by anticipating operations months in advance, by establishing a single operations plan collectively agreed.
We deal with events that impact air traffic every day, whether they are planned - such as sporting events - or unpredictable, such as adverse weather conditions. Operations are run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
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If you are an aviation professional, have a look at our European ATM operations portal which gives information about the European air traffic situation: NOP Public Portal
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Flow management is often recognized as a complex task, requiring rigorous processes and extensive collaboration with all partners involved in air traffic management operations.
Since 1995, “EUROCONTROL CFMU Operations” has been unique in the world in that it manages air traffic flows across the national boundaries of 40 countries, 38 EUROCONTROL Member States and 2 cooperating States: Morocco and Estonia.
Despite a 33% growth in traffic over the last twelve years, additional capacity has been created and Air Traffic Management delays have been limited to an average of two minutes per flight, with restrictions in Europe applying to only 12% of flights.
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Learn more about our different functions |
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Last validation: 22/07/2011
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