Record traffic and continued strong performance at EUROCONTROL MUAC over summer period

The EUROCONTROL Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre (MUAC) today reported that it safely handled 677,010 flights over the summer period from June to September; the highest volume of summer traffic managed by MUAC since the pandemic.

Summer highlights
On 04 July, MUAC achieved a new milestone handling 5,831 flights. This is a new daily traffic record and a 3% increase on the previous busiest day in 2018.

The busiest month of the summer season was July with 173,977 flights. This is over 10,000 more flights than in June and more than 5,600 flights on average per day. August saw the greatest increase in traffic when compared to last year with traffic up by +3%.

In terms of delay, average delay per flight was well controlled due to healthy staffing levels, combined with pre-tactical and tactical management. The expectation is to end the year below the EU-driven target of 0.31 minutes (18.6 seconds) per flight. In addition, no significant (severity A or B) safety events were recorded during the summer period.

The ongoing support to military airspace users continued, as demonstrated by the close coordination with the organising parties in advance of and during the NATO Summit in June.

In line with its commitment to explore opportunities to reduce aviation’s climate impact, MUAC instructed 7,200 flights to reduce speed for Extended Arrival Management (XMAN) into Heathrow, Gatwick, Amsterdam and Paris over the summer period. This procedure reduces the time aircraft spend in fuel-intensive holding stacks and contributes towards lower emissions.

Recruitment and training
A recruitment drive for more than 100 student air traffic controllers (ATCOs) at MUAC is ongoing; ensuring MUAC maintains a full complement of controllers into the future. Prospective applicants who are interested in becoming the next generation of MUAC are invited to review the full details here: atco.eurocontrol.int.

In terms of controller training, during the summer two groups of student ATCOs continued their journey to become controllers at MUAC. Having successfully completed initial training at École Nationale de l'Aviation Civile (ENAC), one group of student ATCOs arrived at MUAC for the next phase of their learning journey. Meanwhile, another group of student controllers arrived at GATE Aviation Training in Copenhagen, MUAC's new training partner, to begin initial training.