ENAIRE operated more than 632,000 flights this summer, a 3.9% increase
ENAIRE, the national air navigation company operating in Spain and 4th most important in Europe in terms of flight numbers, handled a total of 632,731 IFR (Instrumental Flight Rules, i.e. instrumental flights) flights this summer (from 1 July to 30 September), 3.9% more (23,800 more) than in the same quarter last year.
On average, ENAIRE handled 259 more flights per day
The all-time record of 7,066 movements handled in a single day, registered last year, was broken on 19 days.
Over these three months, the busiest days in terms of traffic were: July 28, an all-time record with 7,343 flights in a single day; 4 August, with 7,326; and 1 September, with 7,257.
On average, ENAIRE handled 259 more flights per day.
All types of traffic are increasing: domestic flights are increasing 7.6% (114,597 flights), overflights that do not depart from or arrive at a Spanish airport are growing by 6.2% (128,315) and international flights by 2.1% (389,819).
Traffic at all ENAIRE's air traffic control centres increased this summer: most of all in the Canary Islands, by 8.1% (88,517); followed by Madrid, 4.1% (322,584); Seville, 3.1% (116,280); Barcelona, 2.9% (315,907), and Palma, 2% (136,871).
Accumulated data from January to September
In the first nine months of this year, ENAIRE operated more than 1.6 million flights, a 4.7% increase on the same period in 2017. Of the total amount, 954,066 were international (+2.8%); 315,097, domestic (+9.1%) and 335,196, overflights (+6.5%).
ENAIRE's commitment to safety and punctuality
It was a very busy summer in terms of air traffic, with many periods of extreme weather, making August the month that saw the highest number of incidents of lightning and thunderstorms ever registered in the records held by the State Meteorological Agency.
Even so, and always placing the highest priority on guaranteeing the safety of all flights, ENAIRE made a substantial effort to mitigate the operational impact of both these delay-causing parameters.
In this respect, it should be underlined that 72% of delays caused by air navigation systems and services on flights operated by ENAIRE are attributable to European regulations.
In addition, the conflictive work-related incidents of some collateral airspace service providers, such as the Marseille Control Centre, had a particularly bad direct impact on the Barcelona-El Prat Airport.
The overall percentage of accumulated en-route delay attributable to ENAIRE from January to September 2018, compared to the entire European delay, was only 6%.
The Spanish en-route delay (measured in minutes/flight) is a quarter of the average European delay, which shows how effective the measures taken are and the excellent results being achieved by ENAIRE in terms of efficiency.
In order to continue improving, we are working full-time to draw useful conclusions and develop the human and technological resources, as well as operational initiatives and airspace design, to help us tackle next summer with even better guarantees and from the best possible angle.
As regards the impact of adverse weather conditions on operational safety management, ENAIRE is actively pursuing support programmes with airlines, companies belonging to the aviation industry and the Official College of Commercial Aviation Pilots (or COPAC from its Spanish acronym).
This is the line taken by the seminars held for this purpose, in order to improve the coordination and management of operations affected by the ever increasing spells of extremely bad weather and their corresponding impact on flight restrictions and regulations in the interests of safety.
A cornerstone in boosting all improvements is the Strategic Plan (Flight Plan 2020), which is the 'navigation chart' that is to guide ENAIRE on the path towards excellence, within the framework of our commitment to safety and the challenge posed by the Single European Sky.
About ENAIRE
ENAIRE is the company belonging to the Public Works Department that handles air navigation in Spain. It renders aerodrome control services at 21 airports, including the 5 busiest in terms of air traffic.
All aircraft crossing the airspace assigned to our country receive communications, navigation and surveillance services using ENAIRE's modern network of facilities, consisting of:
5 control centres, 2 terminal area control centres, 237 radio aids providing en-route airport guidance and approach support, 54 en-route, approach and surface surveillance systems, 90 communications centres ( combining transmitter/receiver centres and control towers), 100 REDAN voice and data communication nodes for air navigation applications, 126 control tower posts, and 153 control centre posts.
In 2017, ENAIRE operated 1.99 million flights to and from four continents (Europe, America, Asia and Africa), transporting 284 million passengers.
Number of the Department of communication +34 912 967 551
Communication department email address comunicacion@enaire.es