Traffic in the Czech sky exceeded 900,000 aircraft movements again31/1/2020|Press releasesEvaluation of the operational results of the Aeronautical Information Management (AIM) of the Czech Republic for 2019 confirmed the expected slight decrease in air traffic in the Czech airspace. This development was caused by capacity problems in the region of Central and Western Europe, especially Austria and Hungary, and by the need to relieve the congested airspace above Germany. For the whole of 2019, 906,666 aircraft movements were recorded in the airspace of the Czech Republic, which represents a year-on-year decrease in traffic by 0.6% compared to 2019 (912,815 aircraft movements). The traffic was traditionally the highest in July, when the Prague Air Traffic Control Centre provided its services to 95,206 aircraft movements – an average of 3,070 flights per day. According to statistics, aircraft in the Czech sky flew a total of 208,000,000 kilometres and their total weight was 95,000,000 tons. Lufthansa remains the company's largest customer, followed by Wizz Air and Ryanair. Given the capacity problems of the pan-European air traffic system and at the request of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EUROCONTROL), the company re-joined the measures to maintain an acceptable delay rate in Central and Western Europe. As a result of these measures and also due to capacity problems in Hungary and Austria, aircraft on long-haul routes outside the Czech airspace were redirected, mainly northwards over Poland, or southwards over Serbia and Croatia. In 2019, the capacity requirements of all airspace users in the Czech Republic were met and the delay rate decreased by 44% to 0.27 minutes per flight compared to 2018. The company's share of the pan-European delay is thus negligible 1.1%. This fact and the work of Czech air traffic controllers was appreciated by both EUROCONTROL and the air carriers during the first evaluation of 2019. A similar development was recorded at Václav Havel Airport Prague, where the number of aircraft movements (take-offs and landings) decreased by 0.5% year-on-year to 154,485. The total traffic at all Czech airports (Prague, Brno, Ostrava and Karlovy Vary) at which Aeronautical Information Management (AIM) of the Czech Republic provides its services is 230,458 take-offs and landings (year-on-year decrease of 1%). “We take the development and experience of 2019 as an opportunity and therefore actively negotiate with our partners in Germany, Austria and Hungary to eliminate restrictions for our customers with a suitable operational solution in 2020,” said Jan Klas, CEO of the Czech Air Navigation Institute. Selected operational information Total traffic in 2019 906,666 aircraft movements The highest traffic for one month – July 2019 95,206 aircraft movements The highest traffic in one day – 12 July 2019 3,210 aircraft movements Total number of passengers in the Czech airspace in 2019 * approx. 135 million The most frequent type of aircraft in the Czech sky Boeing 737 all types – 196,345 movements The number of Airbus A 380 – 800 flights 17,506 movements * With an average capacity of 150 seats per aircraft