FAB - Functional Airspace Blocks

The FAB concept was developed in the 1st legislative package of the Single European Sky (SES I) as one of the main means for reducing airspace fragmentation. The 2nd legislative package (SES II) tackled the creation of FABs in terms of service provision, in addition to the airspace organisation issues.

The twofold objective of the legislative packagers is to optimise air traffic flows and increase the efficiency of air traffic services in Europe.

SES II lays down a definite commitment date for the Member States to improve performance by implementing FABs, i.e. 4 December 2012. Nine FAB initiatives have been taken:

Short name Name Countries
NEFAB North European FAB Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Norway
Denmark-Sweden Denmark-Sweden Denmark, Sweden
BALTIC FAB BALTIC FAB Poland, Lithuania
FABEC FAB Europe Central France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Switzerland
FABCE FAB Central Europe Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina
DANUBE DANUBE Bulgaria, Romania
BLUE MED BLUE MED Italy, Malta, Greece, Cyprus, (and Egypt, Tunisia, Albania, Jordan as observers)
UK-IRELAND FAB UK-IRELAND FAB United Kingdom, Ireland
SW FAB South West FAB Portugal, Spain

For the details about the computation of delay at FAB level (i.e. the FIRs used), please refer to the relevant section in the En-route ATFM delays page part of the Datasets Definition section.

See Also