Air traffic control in Denmark is deficient and suffers from a lack of trained air traffic controllers, manpower and a lack of supervision.
This is the conclusion of the report of the European Aviation Safety Agency, EASA, which is actually not new but five years old and has been kept secret since 2021 when it was published.
Now, however, the Danish newspaper Politiken and the country’s national broadcaster, DR, have gotten their hands on the report, or at least its contents, and the media are discussing the matter.
The Danish transport agency Trafiktstyrelsen is responsible for monitoring that the country’s airports comply with international regulations, but after the visit of EASA inspectors in the fall of 2021, the agency made the comment in its report that the transport agency should only have one person on board who had the qualifications needed to supervise the nine airports in Denmark which, due to their size, fall under the regulations of the European Union.
“Serious Reading”
In addition, monitoring of the information that pilots receive about Danish airports is lacking, but all in all, the EASA inspectors pointed out thirteen points in their report that were not read, which is double the number compared to the average number of comments that European airports have received during the agency’s inspections.
The Danish Transport Agency says in a written response to DR’s inquiry about the issue that security at Danish airports has always been “at a high level”, but Paul Hulme Harrison, spokesman for the aviation technical committee of the union IDA, whose members include a number of engineers and IT staff, says the EASA report is “serious reading”.
“This (situation) reduces aviation safety. There is no doubt about it,” Harrison said on DR’s morning show P1 Morgen this morning.
You should be able to trust the transport agency
Kasper Svendsen, a former pilot and now chairman of the FPU, the union of pilots and crew, says he is shaking his head at the report.
“We should be able to trust our highest authority in Denmark, which is the transport agency, it stands for safety in air traffic. We should be able to trust that the data we get from there and the work that the agency does for us is adequate so that we can do our work,” says Svendsen to DR.
Politiken (subscription required)
