What's up guy's???

[Whooaahh]

Thought someone better put something in here as Europe has been "sleeping it off" for some time now.

Surely, someones recovered from the Holiday Season by now!!

No? Oh, well...back to sleep then, Huh??

Whooaahh!!!

[ATC Watcher]

Right, you want some European specific news :
Yesterday Saturday 8 January 2000 we had to put an ATFM regulation on one of our new uper sector in Maastricht for the first time after its introduction 3 years ago.
This means that we had more traffic thought the West part of Belgian Airspace on the 8 of January this year than we had in the middle of the Summer 99. If this kind of traffic growth continue, I can predict a very cahotic summer with enormous delays, certainly worse that last year, which was already the worse on record..
Back to you for comment.

[ooizcalling]

Are there any levels or alternative tracks in that West Belgium airspace that are less affected than others that you could ask for in an attempt to avoid the log jam ?

[bigmac]

Have you seen the size of Belgium?

[ATC Watcher]

Thank you bigmac .
Now, another piece of info about Belgium :
Their Governement decided some years ago that their air force should buy F16s. ( there are around 50 left ) and Alpha jets (also around 50 ) to train they need aispace, and seen the size of Belgium, their training areas when active take roughly half of Belgium, reducing the Luxemburg sector to a mere crossing point of 4 different airways, that you overfly in 4 minutes, during which time you all have to change of FL to avoid the others coming from the 3 other directions...

[CargoRat]

Only 50 F-16's left? What happened to the other 50-60 or so?

[ATC Watcher]

ever heard of G-loc ? That caused a few dozens losses over the years, rest victims of budgetary costs ( 30 or so are stored somewhere).. the Mirages are also all gone ...to Chili I have heard.