The European airspace fragmentation. A cost-efficiency based assessment

Due to the Air Navigation Service Providers' (ANSPs’) unit rates variability at different European airspace areas, the Airspace Users (AUs) for the same Air Navigation Service (ANS) provision pay different financial amounts. The AU' interest is to achieve the lowest possible operational costs, so it is often the case that the aircraft, if there is an alternative, fly on longer but economically more acceptable routes through cheaper charging zones. Over the time, the application of such practice had led to the creation of different business interests - that is a critical issue hindering further air transport development in Europe. This paper investigates the research question of whether and if so, how the European airspace is fragmented in terms of cost-efficiency features. By the application of spatial autocorrelation methodology, i.e. by associating every ANSP’s unit rate value with its spatial position within the European Air Traffic Management (ATM) system, the research question was answered. Research findings indicate that European airspace is fragmented from a cost-efficiency aspect and divided into several different homogeneous areas. Such areas are characterized by a certain similarity level of adjacent unit rates, whereas one charging zone represents a hotspot in terms of its dissimilarity to adjacent spatial units.