Congestion in European Airspace

This article deals with Air Traffic Control (ATC) pricing as a means of sorting out the European airspace congestion problem. For several years the situation has been worsening. Insufficient capacity of the ATC system, poor coordination between European ATC providers, and a high traffic level, as a consequence of economic growth, price competition, and hub-and-spoke organisation, explain a congested sky. The present ATC pricing rule is not designed to solve this problem. Components of this rule do not give airlines incentives to modify their choices. The article makes a proposal for a new rule, so that the airlines' equilibrium choices are also optimal choices, from a social point of view. © The London School of Economics and the University of Bath 2004