Slot swapping is a means to reduce the impact of delays which may be caused by late inbound flights, weather conditions, airport congestion, among others. Slot exchanges within a single airline are agreed in a cooperative process with the Network Manager to smooth the traffic flow. The SESAR solution enhances slot swapping functionalities by making it possible to swap pre-allocated slots with allocated slots or carry out multiple swaps for a single flight. These functionalities allow airlines to swap between long-haul and short-haul flights, or split the delay assigned to one flight between a maximum of three flights.
In current operations, when a flight is cancelled the Network Manager assigns its slot to another flight, usually operated by a different airline. This situation does not encourage flight cancellation, which results in the slots of cancelled flights being made available too late for them to be used by another flight. This solution allows airlines to promote one of their own flights in instances where they have to cancel a flight. This feature is expected to encourage cancellation of flights in the system, which would ultimately benefit all airspace users, particularly in capacity constrained situations.
Exercises simulating European city pairs validated this swapping tool which supported multiple swaps for a single flight, as well as substituting slots in case of cancellation.Over a seven-week time period, 199 swap requests were made using the tool with only 5 % rejected. The Network Manager reported that the response time to requests was not affected. Airspace users reported estimated savings of EUR 1 000 per flight.
The solution is available for industrialisation and has been implemented by the Network Manager.
SJU references: #56/Release 4
Benefits
- Improved network performance (management and capacity)
- Improved environmental performance
Datapack