There won’t be many of us who have heard of the Sesar Initiative, but we will soon know all about it. This is a collaboration between the aviation sector, Euro Central and the European Commission. Their sole aim is to ensure that the problems currently being experienced by flying through Europe are stopped in their tracks and the future of flying in European airspace will continue for decades to come.
Our skies are overcrowded, congested and the problem is only going to get worse. At present 1.4bn passengers pass through 440 European airports every year, and this figure is growing by 5% every year. At that rate, there will be 16.9m flights a year jostling for space in an already seriously overcrowded airspace. This is simply downright dangerous, but thanks to Sesar, those problems are not going to occur.
Altogether there are 100 partners in Sesar ,giving them 2000 aviation experts at their disposal. The plans have been put in place to address the main 4 points as quickly as possible, and put an end to current problem whilst at the same time ensuring at the same time that the projected ones never come to fruition.
Step one is to treble the available European airspace, instantly lessening the overcrowding and congestion and ensuring that planes never pass close enough for the passengers to wave to each other. This will be done by bringing into play another section of the empty skies over Europe where at present no planes fly through. Step two is the well overdue ditching of the archaic air management system that is still in use 50 years after it was invented. The new system will also cost a lot less to maintain and run.
Air safety always has been and always will be of paramount importance, and the third of Sesar’s objectives is to increase this tenfold. Carbon emission is another problem is being addressed, and the level of emissions is to fall by another 10%, despite their being more planes in the sky.
