After completing his legal studies, Klaus-Dieter Scheurle (born in 1954) began his professional career at the German Federal Ministry of Justice. He subsequently held positions in the Bavarian State Ministry for Federal and European Affairs and in the German Bundestag (parliament) before taking on the job as Private Secretary and Head of the Minister's Office at the Federal Ministry for Posts and Telecommunications. He then moved to the private sector for several years, holding the position of Managing Director in the investment banking business of Credit Suisse. After being appointed Permanent State Secretary at the Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development, he then became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH in 01.01.2013.

The European Commission is the Communication on the SES2 package which will sent out on the 11th of June, what is the DFS view on the reform? 

Having spoken to many of my colleagues as well as to our customer and the regulators, I am missing a common vision about how Single European Sky should finally look like. For some, the vision is to have a single European service provider, others believe that through the injection of competition, cost effectiveness and performance will be stimulated. The SES regulations as well as the complicated institutional structure combine elements of both directions, consolidation as well as competition. The common denominator is to increase performance but we have to be clearer about how regulation can enable us in increasing performance rather than putting additional restrictions on us.

How do you consider the A6 partnership, and what are your expectations going forward?

The A6 partnership was originally build to support the SESAR Development coordination among the SESAR - ANSP Partners. The achievements of this cooperation is clearly visible in a much stronger influence of the A6 on the SESAR programme. Besides that a solid working relationship has been established among the A6 to coordinate effectively and efficiently all matters of common interest in the SESAR environment. Now, at the advent of the deployment of the SESAR results, we are changing this partnership - beyond SESAR - into a more general coordination of the establishment of future oriented concepts, systems, and services. It goes now to the heart of our business development and requires in future a much closer alignment of our investment plans. 

DFS is one of the partners of FABEC, how do you see FABs partnership during the implementation phase?
Currently, FABEC and the air navigation services in Europe are in a crucial period. Most EU Member States failed to create fully operational FABs by the deadline in early December 2012. The major FAB initiative relies on the redesign of the airspace which will surely bring benefits to airspace users. The problem with that is, that for some ANSPs, if traffic flows are optimized without regard to the national borders, this presents a potential danger to their business models. It is therefore necessary to develop a fair and transparent compensation scheme. In terms of SESAR deployment FABs can generally serve as a regional level for the implementation of new services in a more consolidated way, avoiding multiple and therefore costly implementations.

The consultation for the second reference period of the Performance Scheme has just started, what is your view on the ANSPs strategy on this very important topic?

In a monopoly we need to have strong economic regulation through an independent and competent regulator who has a good understanding of the needs of the customers as well as what is feasible to be done by the service providers in a given institutional and financial context. The targets need to be ambitious and achievable. The ANSP must not be made responsible for what is beyond its control, be it the traffic development or uncontrollable costs or measures imposed on the ANSP through regulations - including for example binding implementing rules for elements of the ATM Master Plan.

Our main strategic focus in the actual consultation process should therefore be to ensure:

-    on the one hand a thorough consideration of the lessons learned from the current RP1 period, mainly regarding the consequences of the considerable deviation of the original traffic forecast as well as of he traffic risk sharing model
-    and on the other hand a balanced approach in the (EU-) target-setting process, ensuring ambitious and realistic targets as well as the appropriate consideration of interdependencies and trade-offs between the KPAs and KPI.

DFS and ENAV have a longstanding partnership, how do you see the evolution of our relationship in the future SES environment? 

The ENAV - DFS- Partnership is an important asset in the future SES environment. It can serve as a cornerstone for common future developments, especially in the before mentioned context of alignment of investments, common system- and service-development and even common service provision. We should address this future opportunities with a clear business driven mindset, as we need to focus on real benefits for our customers, the European ATM / ANS performance and last but not least also for ourselves.