Article

CRCO’s digital transformation programme is improving efficiencies, transparency and resilience

12 May 2025

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Bhev Chandrasena, EUROCONTROL Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Responsible For The Central Route Charges Office And Finance

EUROCONTROL’s Central Route Charges Office (CRCO) has embarked on a technology upgrade programme which is enhancing the interactions of the CRCO with the stakeholders of the route charges system. States, ANSPs and airspace users can now benefit from EUROCONTROL’s Central Route Charges Office CRCO2.0 digitalisation upgrade programme.

The CRCO runs an effective and efficient system which ensures that en-route charges – essential to the funding of the European Air Traffic Management (ATM) system – are recovered in a scalable centralised manner. Services include billing, collecting, and disbursing route charges to Member States and their Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), and at their request, the same service for terminal navigation. The CRCO also provides billing and collection services for both en-route and terminal navigation charges for certain non-Member States. Finally, the CRCO invoices communication services on behalf of a single Member State. In 2024, the CRCO invoiced €11.2bn in air navigation charges to over 6,600 airspace users worldwide. The average recovery rate for route charges over the last 10 years is 99.7%.

“CRCO 2.0 is all about bringing both the airspace users and ANSPs closer to us and delivering those extra services to meet their needs,” said Bhev Chandrasena, EUROCONTROL's CFO responsible for the CRCO and Finance. “With the new CEFA and ETNA portals (see “CRCO 2.0 – Digitally Charged Aviation Finance”) we have invested in improving the customer experience.

The Route Charges System

"As of now, airspace users can upload billing information directly from their own systems enabling better control of the data used for the billing of their charges. This has also accelerated Green Billing i.e. going paperless – eliminating the need to send out reams of paper. We have also used this to facilitate credit card payments, making it easier for smaller airspace users to pay and saving on administration time. In short, this gives a better customer experience and collects the Member States’ charges faster and more efficiently.”

The same applies to Member States and ANSPs; all our interactions with States and ANSPs are now done online: from the transmission of the flight data to their validation and possible corrections, to the reporting on the charges billed, collected and disbursed on behalf of the Member States.

EUROCONTROL Charges

“The new tools allow the airspace users to do a lot more online, saving time and facilitating the process. And of course, a EUROCONTROL invoice by definition is transparent and all the underlying data can be validated,” said Pierre Depireux, Head of the Central Route Charges Office. In an age of phishing and cyber threats, security and transparency are increasingly valued elements in our relationships with both airspace users and Member States.

The CRCO 2.0 has effectively raised the bar for the CRCO, aligning with other Agency digitalisation programmes (see “CRCO 2.0 – Digitally Charged Aviation Finance”).

Deploying new technologies and the resulting tools will continue to enable the CRCO to build on its scale advantage and provide value for money services to the sector. “With traffic increases, tight cost control and leveraging our scale we have seen our own unit costs decrease,” said Bhev Chandrasena. “This is no small feat and is a tribute to the continued support of the Member States, generations of CRCO leadership and an extremely dedicated workforce."

In addition, the high recovery rate and the low invoice claim rate (due to the accuracy of the billing data), have been strong arguments to support the expansion of CRCO services. CRCO bills terminal navigation charges for 18 EUROCONTROL Member States, while three non-EUROCONTROL States (Egypt, Morrocco and Uzbekistan) also rely on the CRCO to manage their air navigation charges.

“This is where our economies are further scaled up by going digital – we can provide these services by leveraging our systems and resources for the benefit of all,” said Bhev Chandrasena.

CRCO 2.0 has also transformed the treasury capabilities of the CRCO. With the implementation of our new treasury management system, we are in an even better position to monitor our cash and deposits positions to ensure that we pass liquidity into the system rapidly and without fail. Ensuring operational liquidity is key for the continuous provision of air navigation services.

The high recovery rate mentioned above is under- pinned by the enforcement measures made available to EUROCONTROL by Member States and their ANSPs, which may result in aircraft detention or denial of air navigation services for unpaid route charges.

“At the heart of the CRCO’s new transformation programme are our customers and how we can continuously raise the bar on the services we provide them,” said Bhev Chandrasena. “Air navigation services are an essential public service, and we have the privilege of playing a role in ensuring the funding of these services. It is about being resilient through innovation to stay fit for the future.”

The CRCO 2.0 programme has been developed to move towards a more flexible, digital, transparent route charges billing and collection system, concentrating all our interactions with States, ANSPs and airspace users through online portals, thereby improving the user experience, reducing manual interventions and the related error risks, reducing paperwork through a green billing system (paperless) and facilitating access for airspace users to view the details of their accounts and invoices.

It comprises several elements:

The CRCO Extranet for Airspace users (CEFA) is its bespoke airspace user portal launched in September 2022 and is a free, simple-to-use, secure and confidential online portal, making exchanging air navigation billing information between airspace users and the Central Route Charges Office simple and efficient.
The Extranet for National Administrations (ETNA), or CRCO portal for national administrations, was launched in September 2023 and is a personal portal for States and ANSPs to connect and collaborate with the Central Route Charges Office.
The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project (COMPAS) is a new financial management system which integrates accounting, debt collection and treasury within a single piece of software. The project which started in Q2 2024 and will be completed over the next year. The ERP will integrate the debt collection, accounting and treasury of the Multilateral and Bilateral Agreements.