**A damning report** A report released Wednesday by the French Senate, authored by centrist Senator Vincent Capo‑Canellas, paints a stark picture of French air traffic control performance. According to data compiled by the Senate Finance Committee, the Direction des Services de la Navigation Aérienne (DSNA) is now Europe's most delayed air navigation service provider, with 6.6 million minutes of cumulative delay in 2025—a 60% increase since 2019. These delays cost airlines an estimated €800 million and caused massive passenger disruption, even as other European providers improved their performance over the same period. Between 2015 and 2025, 33% of all air traffic control-related delays in Europe originated from the DSNA, rising to 36% in 2025. Eurocontrol projections are particularly alarming: by 2030, if nothing changes, the average delay per flight could approach 4 minutes, with annual losses of €1.3 billion for airlines and structurally cancelled flights due to insufficient control capacity. **Structural causes of underperformance** The report emphasizes that increased traffic alone does not explain France's poor performance, which stems rather from forecasting and resource allocation shortcomings. The DSNA currently relies on Eurocontrol's global forecasts, deemed too coarse, while finer tools exist—such as an experiment at the Brest en-route center (CRNA)—that should be generalized. A "demographic shock" worsens the situation, with 30% of air traffic controllers set to retire between 2029 and 2035, in a context already marked by understaffing and tensions over territorial deployments (about 700 sites). Added to this is a work organization considered more rigid than the European average and significant technological debt, marked by stalled modernization programs (including 4‑Flight) and an increasingly obsolete and fragile technical architecture. **A pact of confidence funded by charges** Capo‑Canellas notes that French air traffic control is an industrial and commercial activity funded by air navigation charges paid by airlines, under a multi-year European regulatory framework. The dynamism of these charges is notable: their revenue increased by €303 million between 2024 and 2025, bringing the yield to €2.2 billion and enabling faster-than-expected reduction of the debt of the Budget Annexe Contrôle et Exploitation Aériens (BACEA). The rapporteur therefore considers it legitimate to allocate part of this surplus to fund recruitment and productivity efforts, in a "pact of confidence and responsibility" between the DSNA, airlines, and the state. This pact would be based on a commitment to increased DSNA performance in exchange for additional resources, coupled with enhanced transparency requirements on the effectiveness of funded measures. **Accelerating and rationalizing controller training** The first key recommendation: significantly increase air traffic controller recruitment starting in 2027, taking into account the capacity of the École Nationale de l'Aviation Civile (ENAC) and, if necessary, recruiting controllers trained in other European countries. The quantified target is to recruit about 60 additional controllers per year for several years, with the cost fully funded by air navigation charges. The rapporteur also highlights a major handicap: the duration of training in France, about five years, compared to three years on average in Europe, notably due to the "full rating" principle that requires systematic training in en-route, approach, and tower control. He proposes studying two levers within social dialogue to reduce this training time and align it with European standards: postponing the engineering degree to continuing education rather than initial training, and gradually relaxing the "full rating" principle. **Gaining productivity through a more agile organization** Despite some recent flexibilities in work organization, French air traffic controller productivity remains below the European average, with 0.81 average flights controlled per hour per controller in 2024, compared to 0.98 in Europe. The report notes, however, that the cost per control hour remains lower in France (€141 vs. €153), which strengthens the case for a productivity effort rather than a simple budget adjustment. The 2023‑2027 social protocol introduced flexibility measures (staggered starts, early departures, end of "clearances"…), but these remain costly—about €130 million per year, far more than the initially planned €100 million—and their effectiveness is not sufficiently documented. Capo‑Canellas therefore asks the DSNA to conduct a detailed evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of each performance measure, to maximize those that have proven beneficial, and to ease local implementation conditions to better match resources to actual air traffic. **Better allocation of control resources to traffic** To improve the match between control capacity and traffic, the report recommends moving from a system based on historical traffic patterns to dynamic capacity management using real-time data and predictive tools. This would allow controllers to be deployed where and when they are most needed, reducing delays without necessarily increasing the total number of controllers. The report also calls for greater use of cross-border airspace management and flexible sectorization to optimize capacity during peak hours.