The introduction of the Free Route Airspace (FRA) in the airspace of BiH and the entry into the regional project SEAFRA brought numerous benefits, which include the shortening of the aircraft flight, reducing fuel consumption and the price of overflight, and the increase of the turnover of air traffic by increasing the revenue by a total of 4.6 million BAM,” said Davorin Primorac, director of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Air Navigation Services Agency (BHANSA).
Free routes are among the crucial achievements within the EU initiative to establish a Single European Sky, which will be independent of the state borders or borders of functional airspace blocks, with the aim of increasing safety and efficiency, as well as the increase of the capacity of air traffic in Europe.
Primorac noted that BiH and the neighboring countries, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, made an additional step by creating SEAFRA, the first common space of free routes H24 in Europe, which includes a total of four countries. Analyzes of traffic through the airspace of BiH have shown that the number of flights has increased in comparison to the previous period, while the flight length has been reduced. Thus, the goal of this project was fully achieved.
“Besides creating conditions for EU integration, the concept of SEAFRA resulted in shortening of the aircraft’s flight for about 2880 NM (nautical miles) on a daily basis, which represents a reduce of a daily fuel consumption by 9.3 tons, which is about 3.4 million kg a year, as well as environmental protection through the reduction of a daily fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the amount of 30 tons of CO2 and emissions of nitrogen oxide NOx by 110 kg,” said Primorac.
An important benefit is reducing the price of transit through the airspace of BiH, which implies the improvement of competitiveness. This should also increase the volume of air traffic through increased revenue and better flight predictability.
“The next step is the merger of SEAFRA and SAXFRA (Slovenia / Austria), and thus a large part of the space in Europe will be integrated into a large FRA area that will include the airspace of six countries,” noted Primorac.
“The period behind us is very successful for BHANSA, and BiH and our society have direct benefits from all these activities,” stated Primorac.
(Source: akta.ba)
