All Together Now 2024

EUROCONTROL has released the 2024 edition of its hands-on guide for flight dispatchers, pilots, air traffic controllers, flow management positions and airports to best prepare for increased air traffic levels in summer 2024 and take a network view. Air traffic in Europe this summer is expected to be up to 5-7% above the traffic levels of 2023 - bringing daily traffic peaks in 2024 to over 36,500 flights! Several parts of the Network are expected to be even busier than 2019. EUROCONTROL's All Together Now guide 2024 provides a clear set of hints and tips grouped by operational stakeholder category on the best practices that operational staff should follow - thereby "Thinking Network" in cooperation with the EUROCONTROL Network Manager Operations Centre to ensure efficient, optimal operations.

"People want to fly and air traffic is growing. We need to act and work as a team to make the aviation network perform efficiently. No one should operate in isolation. Everyone needs to be on board from operational staff at airports, airlines, air navigation service providers to ground handlers. Only if we think Network and not just local, summer air traffic will be manageable. I strongly recommend to all operational stakeholders that they check out our All Together Now 2024 guide."

Together with representatives from airports, ground handlers, airlines and air navigation service providers EUROCONTROL will continue to encourage operational staff to focus on a set of priorities to minimise disruption. These priorities for the aviation sector include

• prioritising first rotation to allow for on time departure
• disciplined flight plan execution to ensure predictability
• delivering agreed capacities
• realistic schedules, including turnaround times

The EUROCONTROL Network Manager will also reinforce its adverse weather management through advanced collaboration with meteorological services and sharing weather data with ops actors to anticipate better forecasted adverse weather conditions. This fifth priority is a consequence from the experience of summer 2023 which saw the highest en-route weather delays in the European aviation network in 10 years. While adverse weather management cannot fully prevent the impact of bad weather, it can mitigate its impact on network traffic with more stable planning, and fewer last-minute regulations.