AA Quoted in Reason Foundation
Air Traffic Control Newsletter #141
An example of what might be possible comes from the European Parliament. As Aviation Intelligence Reporter revealed in January, Polish MEP Pavel Telicka discovered a little-known provision in the framework legislation for the Single European Sky: permission for a single upper airspace flight information region for all of the E.U. AIR‘s editor, Andrew Charlton, described the potential as follows:
“The single pan-European upper airspace FIR . . . would extend across all of Europe. The analogy that everyone uses is a superhighway. . . . No longer would flights that go over, but not into, France be subject to the increasingly frequent industrial action [strikes] the various French controllers’ unions call. . . . [S]uch a proposal would facilitate making en-route services more competitive. The EU FIR can be controlled from anywhere, for all of Europe. Maybe, in the interests of ensuring back-up and competition in the provision of these services, you could split Europe into three or four [upper area] FIRs, and have a back-up provider on standby. ANSPs could bid for providing these services for fixed periods of time.”
Link to Reason Foundation