Two of Europe's leading airline ceos called this week for a Single European Sky to help counter mounting congestion
Wolfgang Mayrhuber, Lufthansa's chairman and ceo, said a single sky coupled with an expansion of the continent's aviation infrastructure would create "extraordinary opportunities" for Europe's economic future.
Leo Hartmann, president and ceo of KLM, said a single sky was needed as part of the solution to the dangers of mounting infrastructural congestion in the European airline industry.
Mr Mayrhuber, speaking at the European Aviation Summit in Frankfurt, said a single sky would also reduce aviation's impact on the environment.
He told the 300 delegates from airlines, airports and associated industries: "Because of insufficient infrastructure both on the ground and in the air, we are today forced to fly holding patterns at an unprecedented rate.
"With the amount of wasted kerosene we could operate eleven daily flights from Frankfurt to New York."
His call was backed by Dieter Kaden, managing director of German Air Navigation Services.
He told the one-day conference a single sky "would reduce CO2 emissions into the atmosphere by up to 12 percent every year – not implementing this until the target year 2020 will damage both the environment and the economy."
Mr Hartmann, speaking at the Airneth Annual Conference, said: "In 2025 the 60 major European airports will be heavily congested, due to stagnation of their infrastructure on the ground and in the air.
"The Top 20 airports may even be wholly or partly saturated.
"The demand for air transport in Europe is set to increase from 9m flights a year in 2007 to 21m flights a year in 2025.
"However, the current air traffic control systems will only be able to accommodate 17m flights.”
He called on national and European authorities, as well as the airline industry itself, to pursue their efforts to prevent congestion.
Mr Hartmann added: "If we add up the extra time flown and the taxi time, as a result of capacity scarcity around and on Schiphol alone, this is equal to one of our aircraft flying around unnecessarily for 134 days a year.
"To cope with these constraints, KLM would have to add extra aircraft to its fleet, increasing impact on the environment."
In a key note speech at the Frankfurt conference, Fernando Conte, ceo of Iberia and chairman of the Association of European Airlines, said airlines often came up against "monopolistic behaviour" from their suppliers and new rules were required to stop abuse.
But he said the EU "Airport Package", while welcome, did not go far enough and more work was needed.
However the consultations between airports and airlines were "redefining" the relationship between the two.
He said their respective associations were now planning a joint conference in Lisbon in November.
It was also improving co-operation on security and airports and airlines were now putting forwards proposals for reform.
The summit also heard calls for an expansion of Europe's aviation infrastructure. Mr Kaden said air traffic was growing at 5% a year and passenger volume would double in the next 15-20 years.
He said it was necessary to expand airports in Germany and Central Europe to meet this demand.