SEPARATION DELIVERY TOOL INCREASES CAPACITY IN THE ARRIVAL STREAM
Although low now, the forecast is that traffic will grow again which will pose a challenge for many of Europe’s busiest airports, especially during peak hours when demand cannot always be accommodated without inducing delay or increasing flying time. Europe’s wake vortex re-categorisation (RECAT-EU) scheme is helping to raise capacity by augmenting the ICAO wake classification with more categories, and already enables up to 8% more arrivals at airports, such as Paris CDG, LeipzigHalle, London Heathrow and Vienna.
SESAR tools are now available to help manage the required separation or space between arrival pairs on final approach to the runway. The optimised runway delivery (ORD) tool uses the distance-based and time-based wake separation rules, including the ICAO, RECAT-EU (see solution PJ.02-01-06), pairwise separation for arrivals (PWS-A)(see solution PJ.02-01-04) and weather dependent separation for arrivals (WDS-A) (see solution PJ.02-01-05) wake separation schemes, to consistently manage the spacing compression that occurs on short final from the lead aircraft crossing the deceleration fix.
SESAR JU partners completed seven exercises with both real-time and fast-time simulation activities at capacity-constrained airports in France, Denmark, Spain and Austria to validate the use of the ORD tool combined with various wake turbulence separation techniques. The activity assessed different arrival procedures including weather-dependent separations, static pairwise separations and ICAO time-based
separations (TBS) using various runway configurations. The results show the ORD tool is operationally feasible and acceptable in both segregated and mixed mode runway operations in highly complex, large airport environments in low wind and strong wind conditions. Furthermore, it was shown that the tool could be combined with performance-based navigation (PBN) procedures with no negative impact on controllers’ work.
The solution is ready for industrialisation and has been implemented in the UK. It can be integrated into the
controller working position and existing TBS system (if present), and uses weather services to measure or
forecast wind on the final approach path. In addition to increased capacity, the solution improves predictability and resilience while reducing fuel burn from aircraft holding.
BENEFITS
Increased runway capacity and improved predictability
Improved resilience during weather disturbances
Decreased fuel burn from aircraft holding
Datapack
Contextual note
CBA
OSED Interop: part I - part II - part IV - part V
TS IRS
