Brussels Airport RUNWAY PERFORMANCE REPORT 2020 member of FABEC / www.skeyes.be EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Air Traffic Management (ATM) Performance is Safety driven by four Key Performance Areas (KPAs): safety, capacity, environment and cost-efficiency. This Two types of events are analysed in this report, both report focuses on skeyes’ operations at Brussels giving a view on airport safety performance: missed Airport (ICAO code EBBR). Its aim is to provide our approaches and runway incursions (RI). Overall, main stakeholders with traffic figures for 2020 and 2020 has seen a decrease in terms of missed relevant data on the performance of the operations approaches by 49%. Even though the number at EBBR, namely on three of four KPA’s: safety, of arrivals has decreased by nearly 60%, capacity and environment. an increase of 25% in the rate of missed approaches per 1,000 arrivals has been registered. The reasons The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant for rates to increase were various: low level social and economic impacts throughout the world. of traffic, single runway operations where one (1) Many countries, including Belgium, decided to of the three (3) runways was used simultaneously, impose a variety of measures in order to prevent the three (3) storms that occurred in February 2020, spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Those measures Northeast wind in April and May and/or closure of mainly affected people movements which eventual- RWY 07L/25R due to the runway renovation works. ly lead to unprecedented levels of disruption In 2020 the most common reason for missed in countries throughout the world. approaches was the weather factor. It appears as a reason 66% more often than in 2019. Traffic In total there were 12 runway incursions and none of them with ATM contribution. Traffic at Brussels Airport has decreased by 59%. The number of passenger flights dropped by 68%, while the number of cargo flight increased by 28% Capacity and Punctuality if compared with the previous year. Despite the decrease in traffic, a similar profile of hourly move- Capacity and delay go hand in hand when it comes ments during the day was observed with peaks to runway performance. As in previous years, the between 08:00 and 11:00 and later between 18:00 throughput capacity of the airport is analysed by and 21:00 Local Time (LT). comparing the actual traffic with the declared IFR capacity. There was one (1) occasion when the 2020 was a special year for Brussels Airport as capacity was exceeded. It happened on the 29th of there were many factors affecting the runway February when runway 19 was in use for both arrivals use. However, runway 25R remains to be the most and departures. The busiest hours occurred in Q1 frequently used runway. Meteorological factors of 2020, before the COVID-19 crisis. The declared (e.g. storms in February) and the renovation capacity was not exceeded in any of these occasions. works on runway 07L/25R (from the 13th of July to the 23rd of August) imposed the use of runway Arrival delay is analysed as a performance target configurations that were different than the usual. that has been set for EBBR. It is defined as the average ATFM delay (in minutes) per flight, attributable to skeyes. The arrival delay due to II the causes considered to have the Air Navigation skeyes usually measures the use of the Preferential Service Provider (ANSP) contribution in 2020 Runway System (PRS) in number of hours. In 2020 was on average 0.03 minutes/flight, below the PRS adherence in time units was recorded as 51%. defined target of 0.17 minutes/flight. There were However, it is also possible to capture the number no regulations placed by the EBBR tower from of flights that were in accordance with the PRS mid-March until the end of 2020. For the reference and that value for 2020 was recorded as 77% of all period 3 (RP3), 2020-2024, only Brussels Airport was operations. Monthly evolution of the PRS use shows considered as contributing airport and, therefore, the low adherence in the months following the start the national target of 0.17 minutes/flight in 2020 of COVID-19 pandemic: one out of the three runways was also the target of Brussels Airport. was used simultaneously which eventually caused the increase of the non-use of the PRS. Apart from In addition to the punctuality, this reports the single runway operations and the meteorological includes the details of the delays from the conditions, works on runway 07L/25R (summer airport’s point of view, i.e. considering the impact 2020) also contributed to the increase of the figures caused by regulations not only at EBBR, but also showing the non-use of the PRS. in the Belgian en-route airspace and by other Air Navigation Service Providers. In 2020, 2,791 Continuous Descent Operations (CDO) percentages departing flights from Brussels Airport were are quite stable over the past four years, with the delayed resulting in a total of 38,793 minutes of performance indicators CDO Fuel close to 65%, and delay. 10% of that delay is attributable to skeyes the CDO noise around 78%. When looking at the while 90% is attributable to other ANSPs. The CDOs flown per runway, it can also be seen that the magnitude of the delay is worth mentioning, with ratio of CDOs flown are comparable to the previous most of the delayed flights (68%) delayed for a year for each runway. Note that both PRS and CDO maximum 15 minutes while 2% of flights faced a data can also be found on the Brussels Airport Traffic delay of more than one hour. Regarding arrivals, Control (BATC) website: www.batc.be. 19,765 flights with destination Brussels Airport At Brussels Airport, the maximum number of night were delayed and experienced the total of 42,795 slots that can be allocated is set by the federal minutes of delay. 46% of that delay is attributable government, through the Ministerial Decree of to skeyes while 54% is attributable to ATFM the 21st measures placed by other ANSPs. 87% of delayed of January 2009. This decree states that a arrivals were delayed by less than 30 minutes. maximum of 16,000 night slots per calendar year can be allocated. Night is from 23:00 to 06:00 Local Time. In 2020, 11,132 night movements were recorded at Environment Brussels Airport by the Airport Movement System. Brussels Airport is geographically located in a densely populated area, which makes the runway use information very important for the neighbouring communities. The selection of runways, the number of green landings and the amount of night move- ments are analysed in this chapter. III THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC The year 2020 is a year that was gravely scarred On the 11th of March 2020, the WHO made the by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this section, a short assessment that COVID-19 was to be characterized summary is provided to give the reader a timeline. as a pandemic. This will be referenced further throughout the report in support of certain statements. The year 2020 can The Belgian government moved into the federal th be split in a period before the COVID-19 crisis and phase of crisis management from the 13 of March the COVID-19 crisis. This is visualised in Figure 0-1. 2020 and ordered the closure of schools, restaurants and cafés, as well as cancellations of public gather- The pandemic originated in Wuhan, China in ings for sporting, cultural or festive purposes. [3] December 2019. The World Health Organisation (WHO) published a disease outbreak news on the At this point the measures taken by countries against COVID-19 and the precautionary actions 5th of January 2020 to report a cluster of cases of of passengers caused flights to be suspended and pneumonia with unknown cause in Wuhan, Hubei airlines to operate ghost flights. The ghost flights Province. This was later identified as the coronavirus are kept in the air for the so-called ‘use it or lose disease COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. it rules’ stipulating the carriers to use 80% of their The first case outside China was reported on the 13th allotted slots or they return to a common pot for of January 2020 in Thailand. [1] the next calendar year for the lucrative slots. In a On the 24th January 2020, France reported its first reaction to this, the European Union suspended confirmed COVID-19 case, the first in Europe. temporarily the rules that encouraged airlines to The first case in Belgium was reported on the 04th keep empty ghost flights in the air. of February 2020. As of the 22nd of February 2020, Additional measures, based on the spread of Italy became the country with the most cases COVID-19 in Belgium, were in place as of the 18th in Europe and the third most cases worldwide, of March 2020 with stricter social distancing measures, and on the 23rd of February 2020 the Italian with non-essential travel prohibited, non-essential government introduced strict measures. [2] shops closed, gatherings banned, and penalties for Figure 0‑1: COVID‑19 timeline Start of the year Start of 01 January 2020 COVID-19 crisis 18 March 2020 04 February 2020 First COVID-19 case in Belgium IV anyone who failed to comply with the restrictions. In August-September 2020 the number of new [4] This event is used here as the start of the crisis corona infections per day began to rise again in of the COVID-19 pandemic.