Air traffic is increasing in Europe, especially around major hub airports. Optimising airspace capacity in the terminal manoeuvring areas supports future growth along with improved flight efficiency and environmental performance. Planning arrival streams from an earlier stage enables delays to be absorbed in the en-route phases of flight, saving fuel and emissions compared with stack holding or long transitions in the terminal manoeuvring area. Research is underway to further extend the arrival planning distance, and to incorporate more complex and high-density environments where the en-route sector serves more than one airport or terminal manoeuvring area.

This candidate solution develops concepts for digital synchronisation of arrivals and departures in high density/complexity environments. Specifically, it investigates the concept of automated controlled time of arrival.

The proposed arrival constraints apply to the en-route phase and ground phase for “in-horizon” airports prior to start-up. SESAR is developing an extended arrival manager (E-AMAN) prototype that supports i4D/CTA, TTL/TTG advisories for the airport and provides sequencing of the traffic flow. The candidate solution will also develop and provide a “what-if” tool that will be necessary in order to automate the process through provision and insertion of an airborne trajectory modeller evaluating the expected aircraft behaviour with these constraints.

The candidate solution enables aircraft to fly more optimal trajectories and absorb delay on the ground instead or in the air, reducing fuel burn. It also improves queue management and results in more predictable landing times.

BENEFITS

Enhanced flight efficiency

Improved environmental performance

Supports ICAO performance-based goals