NEWSLETTER-2017

380 NEWSLETTER 2017 phase, the European Aviation Safety Agency (“EASA”) will oversee the SESAR project. Particularly, in the past year, the striking of air traffic controllers in several European countries caused the cancellation of thousands of flights, and approximately one million minutes of delay. Therefore, the International Air Transport Association (“IATA”) demanded of the governments of the EU member states to concentrate on the Single European Sky project for the delay-free continuity of air traffic. Despite that all of the restrictions among the national borders have been removed on road transportation, along with the EU member states, national borders on the air transport all across the EU remain. The EU failed to produce effective solutions to the problems that are growing with each passing day, and now must deal with consider- able congestion and delays. In comparison with other businesses, the aviation sector, which is subject to much more regulation than other industries, in the early 1990s, the Single European Sky initiative, was launched with the intention of resolving industrial problems. The legal infrastructure of the European aviation industry is reorganized by the EU, through Regulation No. 1008, in 2008. Turkey’s accession process, which was initiated in 2005, is determined with progression reports that are released by the EU Harmonization Commission (“Commis- sion”) for Turkey. The Commission announced that there is still room for improvement, while some progress has taken place on the way to harmonize EU air traffic aspects. However, in 2006, the General Di- rectorate of State Airports Authority launched System Modernization of ATM Resources in Turkey (“SMART”), which is one of the largest and postmodern projects, not only in Europe, but also all around the world. Moreover, it is expected to take significant steps in this respect concerning the legislative regulations within a short period of time. As a result, in the first part of the early 2000s, the EU failed to meet expectations in solving the problems of the aviation industry. On the other hand, Turkey is at the ready for the integration to the Single European Sky by all means and, except for minor legal regulations, Turkey is ahead of the majority of the EU member states.