Those who wanted to go on vacation in the summer of 2018 often had to expect flight cancellations and delays. Responsible for this maladministration was, inter alia, the German air traffic control (DFS).

Also for the current year expects the federal owned GmbH again bottlenecks in the German sky. Despite some countermeasures, there are still too few pilots and congested traffic areas with a simultaneous increase in air traffic, said the DFS. After the record 3.4 million aircraft movements in the previous year, it expects a further increase of up to four percent in German airspace.

In particular, the upper airspace, which is controlled from the Center Karlsruhe, is so overloaded over Germany that daily hundreds of flights are relocated to the underlying airspace, although the aircraft there consume more fuel because of the higher air resistance.

According to the air traffic control body, the delays they caused increased significantly, from 0.5 minutes in 2017 to 1.23 minutes per flight last year. The aim is a maximum value of 0.25 minutes. Throughout Europe, the German pilots were responsible for a good fifth of the air traffic control delays in 2018.

However, DFS boss Klaus-Dieter Scheurle fought against the term "chaos". "There is no chaos, we are organizing air traffic control in the sky, but that's the kind of order that sometimes causes delays."

More pilots, more overtime

According to Scheurle, DFS has taken several measures to improve the situation, such as the intensified training of new pilots and the exemption of existing pilots from non-specialist activities. However, there is still no agreement with the union of air traffic control (GdF) on additional overtime. The talks started on Monday were very constructive, said Scheurle.

Training more pilots, giving them more time for the most important tasks - all this sounds like a good plan. But since not all measures take effect immediately, not only the DFS, but also politics and economy for the summer of 2019 expects delays and flight cancellations. This is what the participants of the second aviation summit predicted in March in Hamburg.

The summit with representatives from federal, state, airline, airports, air traffic control and government agencies was the follow-up meeting of a first conference last October after the chaotic summer of travel 2018. Participants had decided on a catalog of 24 measures and reviewed how far they were in each and every one came.

"We want a good mobility offer for the citizens, and we work hard on it," said Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) in March. "But we can not make everyone happy this summer."

30.1 million loss despite increased flight volume

In the past year, DFS has posted less revenue, although it has piloted significantly more flights through the German airspace. Revenues fell by 1.1 percent to 1.18 billion euros compared to the previous year. The number of DFS-controlled flights increased by 4.2 percent during the same period.

The bottom line was a loss of 30.1 million euros, after 2017, a profit of 30.8 million euros had been incurred. The most important reason given by DFS chief Scheuerle was the lowering of aviation security fees by EU regulation. This development continues in the current year.

The commercial third-party business, in which DFS operates, among other things, the airport tower in Great Britain, has developed positively. With a turnover of 67 million euros, an operating profit of 1.5 million euros was achieved. Even the bottom line, the ancillary business had been profitable despite considerable investment.

Left-wing politician Jörg Cezanne demanded more reform zeal from the federal government in the European Union. "Since it has long been known that the EU's rigid performance targets for air navigation services are counterproductive, the federal government must finally get on the track and make fundamental changes in Brussels," Cezanne said in Berlin. "It can not be that the savings made by the aviation lobby become a security problem."