European Network Operations Plan 2024 Rolling Seasonal Plan

An updated version of the Plan is published every Friday, covering a rolling eight-week period and consolidating data from 350 airlines, 68 area control centres (ACCs), 55 airports and 43 States. It is then reviewed every Monday by operational stakeholders in the Ad hoc Enlarged NDOP Recovery Cell, a body that brings Europe’s Network ANSPs, airports, airlines and military Directors of Operations together to enhance performance and tackle issues on a network basis, as inputs for the next edition.

The Plan plays a major role in helping European aviation to recover by providing aviation’s key actors with the global view they need to plan effectively.

NM coordinates with all partners to ensure capacity is available at ACCs and in the airspace they manage, and on the ground at airports, to meet the expected traffic demand from the airlines on each day of the next eight weeks. In parallel, the NM factors in a variety of actions designed to maximise network efficiency and help the NM and its operational stakeholders meet their goal of close to zero ATFM delays across the network, as well as efficient and green trajectories. This includes working closely with State Focal Points to coordinate national requirements, enabling a large proportion of airspace restrictions to be removed. By putting in place a ‘partnering for recovery’ process early on, the EUROCONTROL NM has been able to work with all operational stakeholders throughout the pandemic to ensure that network actors can plan their recovery effectively based on predicted traffic levels.

We developed the Rolling Plan based on the experience gained with the NOP Recovery Plan since April 2020, which it replaces. The first edition of the Recovery Plan was published on 30 April 2020, as European traffic began a slow recovery from its lowest point of just 2,099 flights across the network on 12 April 2020.