Air traffic control agencies from Algeria, France, Morocco, Portugal and Spain have joined with Tunisia in their commitment to optimise their respective airspaces in line with modernisation initiatives such as the Single European Sky (SES) project.
The initiative called AEFMP dates back to the EFP Plan created by Spain, France and Portugal in 1990 which aimed to optimise, harmonise and integrate air navigation systems, following the principles established in Eurocontrol EATCHIP programme.
In 1996, it was decided that the initiative would be extended to Algeria and Morocco to optimise the main transit flows in the region through coordinating and improving the interoperability of the ATS systems in both states, and the AEFMP Plan was established.
In October 2002, both plans combined to establish the AEFMP Joint Plan and in January 2016, members agreed to move forward and strengthen the cooperation, by signing the AEFMP MoU, to meet the challenges posed by the Single European Sky programme.
Finally in 2018, after 15 years, the AEFMP initiative, under the chairmanship of Spain’s ENAIRE, has now been extended to Tunisia.
“The AEFMP initiative is a vital complement for reaching the objectives established in the Single European Sky initiative, given that the South West Functional Airspace Block (SW FAB), formed of Spain and Portugal, is supported by the AEFMP, from a technical and operational perspective, for the purposes of promoting the extension of the SES to collateral airspaces that are not directly included in the SES, Morocco and Algeria, directly related to the ENAIRE’s ‘2020 Flight Plan’,” the partner providers stated.
The document was signed during the World ATM Congress, held in Madrid in March, representing one step further towards harmonising air navigation service provisions with European and African countries.
