Large-scale NATO exercises over European skies could lead to days of flight delays this month. The multinational military alliance is gearing up for the largest air force deployment exercise in its history from June 12-22.
The Air Defender 2023 exercise will take place over German airspace with 10,000 troops and 250 combat aircraft from 25 countries, including the United States.
“As a result of the exercise and related measures, about 800 flights will be diverted daily,” air traffic control organization Eurocontrol said in a statement.
The fallout from the exercise could cause significant delays at a busy time of the year as European air traffic controllers struggle to cope with a post-pandemic flight boom and strikes still go on in France.
“I know there may be restrictions on civil air traffic,” says Ingo Gerhartz, the German air force commander in-chief who is leading the exercise. “But when I see the ratio: ten days out of 365 so that at the end of the day we can live in peace and freedom in this country, I think that this is the right signal that we should send.”
Where will the airspace be closed?
As part of the Air Defender 2023 program, large sections of airspace will be closed to civilian aircraft, mainly over Germany. Commercial pilots will need to navigate three main “clusters”:
- Northern, extending into the airspace of Denmark and the Netherlands;
- Vostochny, near the borders of Poland and the Czech Republic
- Southern, from Luxembourg along the French border, almost to Lake Constance in Switzerland.
Each of these zones will be closed or heavily restricted to civilian air traffic for a few hours each day (except June 17th and 18th).
The southern cluster will have a particularly significant impact on a large number of flights, says travel expert Simon Calder for the British newspaper Independent. According to him, flights from London to Antalya (Turkey) usually pass through this zone, as well as planes from Manchester to the Greek islands.
Which airports and airlines may be affected?
Of the 800 flights that will be diverted, about 300 will have an average of 110 km of route extension, which equates to about seven minutes of flight time at cruising speed. This may not seem like much, but it can cause serious problems given the finely tuned network of flights across Europe.
The busiest airports, such as London’s Heathrow and Gatwick, will face the biggest scheduling headaches. Crew hours and overnight curfews mean that not all delays can be eliminated.
Low-cost airlines such as Ryanair, which have less than 30 minutes between arrivals and departures of some planes, are accumulating delays the fastest. EasyJet, the largest Gatwick-based airline, has tried to reassure passengers that “the impact on operations [will] be minimal.”
Lufthansa’s main hub in Frankfurt will also be affected by the closure of the Southern Cluster airspace.
What are NATO exercises?
“These exercises are not directed against anyone,” says Lieutenant General Gerhartz. “These are defensive exercises designed to show that the alliance is capable of defending itself if necessary.”
The maneuvers of the air force are modeled after the “NATO Article 5 Assistance Scenario” – a situation where a NATO ally is under armed attack. If Russia, for example, attacks a Baltic country such as Estonia, NATO “will take such action as it deems necessary to help an ally under attack.”
Gerhartz added that the training period was chosen so that the exercises ended before the start of the school summer holidays in Germany.