EUROCONTROL MUAC reports strong performance in 2025, safely handling over 1.8 million flights

Maastricht, the Netherlands: Thursday, 22 January 2026: The EUROCONTROL Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre (MUAC) today announced its annual traffic and performance highlights for 2025, reporting consistently strong operational performance and a year-on-year increase in traffic.

Traffic and performance overview
In 2025, MUAC safely handled 1,829,242 flights across its airspace. This is the highest volume of annual traffic managed by MUAC since the pandemic and represents a 2% increase compared to 2024.

It was during the summer period that peak traffic levels were reported. From June to September, 677,010 flights were handled, representing an average of 5,600 flights per day. July was the busiest month of the year with 173,977 flights and a new all-time daily traffic record for MUAC was achieved on 04 July with 5,831 flights. By contrast, some of the strongest year-on-year traffic growth was observed outside the traditional peak travel periods, with traffic in January and March increasing by 3.5% compared with the previous year.

In terms of delay, the average delay per flight for the full-year period was 0.28 minutes (16.8 seconds) per flight, remaining well below the EU-driven target of 0.31 minutes (18.6 seconds). This was achieved due to sufficient and stable air traffic controller staffing levels as well as operational agility including effective pre-tactical and tactical management.

In addition, no significant safety events were recorded during 2025, underscoring MUAC's commitment to ensuring the highest safety standards.

"I am very pleased with our performance in 2025 which demonstrates MUAC's ability to deliver safe, consistently reliable and effective services to all our airspace users, whether civil or military, in a complex and ever-evolving traffic environment. Our strong performance was achieved through effective forward planning, operational agility that allowed us to overcome capacity challenges, stable staffing levels as well as close collaboration with our airspace users, partners and neighbouring centres. It was underpinned by our robust technical systems and by the hard work and dedication of the entire MUAC Team."

Airspace optimisation
In 2025, MUAC implemented several major airspace redesign projects that were the result of several years of planning, coordination, and technical development. This included the introduction of a new airspace structure over the Netherlands and northwest Germany, as well as the straightening of the boundary between MUAC and Reims ACC.

These initiatives are designed to improve operational efficiency, increase capacity, optimise airspace usage and support military mission effectiveness in MUAC's busy and complex airspace.

Supporting military partners
During 2025, MUAC's support to its military airspace users and partners continued.

A milestone was achieved when a German Heron TP unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) successfully operated for the first time within airspace controlled by MUAC. This marked a small but significant step in ongoing research into the safe integration of UAVs into civil airspace.

A further example of MUAC's commitment to its military partners included support during military exercises over the course of the year, as well as close collaboration with the organising authorities ahead of, and during, the major NATO Summit in June 2025.

Environmental initiatives
Exploring opportunities to reduce aviation's climate impact remained a key focus for MUAC.

By offering airlines new routeings through the ATM Portal, MUAC enabled an estimated CO₂ saving of 811,692kg in 2025. Furthermore, MUAC handled 27,000 requests to adjust speed for Extended Arrival Management (XMAN) into Heathrow, Gatwick, Amsterdam and Paris, reducing time spent by aircraft in fuel-intensive holding stacks.

Recruitment and training
In 2025, MUAC partnered with GATE Aviation Training in Copenhagen to deliver initial training for the next generation of air traffic controllers. The first cohort of ten student controllers has successfully completed their initial training and will continue their operational training at MUAC in February 2026.

To ensure MUAC continues to maintain a full complement of controllers into the future, plans are underway to recruit more than 100 student controllers over the coming years as part of its long-term workforce planning. Prospective applicants who are interested in becoming controllers are invited to review the full details here: atco.eurocontrol.int.

"Being future ready is our key strategic focus and will continue to be a central component in all that we do. Our planning for 2026 and beyond is well underway, with a clear focus on delivering high-quality services, as traffic is expected to increase beyond pre-pandemic levels. While capacity and performance targets present challenges, we are confident in our ability to address them as best we can through careful planning, close coordination with our partners, and a continued focus on operational excellence; all while balancing the requirements of our civil and military airspace users.

MUAC has innovation in its DNA and it is our innovative mindset together with our drive to explore new technologies, including automation, that will ensure we are well positioned for the future."

In line with EUROCONTROL's Trajectory 2030 strategy, MUAC remains firmly focused on delivering its strategic objectives in support of safe and efficient air traffic management in Europe.

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