Introduction 

Target time of arrival (TTA) is a progressively refined planning time for a given flight/aircraft, that is used to coordinate arrivals and departures, to help balance demand and capacity in the aviation system. Already commonly used by busy airports within Europe as part of their collaborative decision making (CDM) processes, the network benefits have not yet been fully realised partly due to the impact of long-haul flights arriving from out-of-area (i.e. outside the European Regulation Area). These flights often reach the arrival airport at the same time e.g. early morning, and by necessity enter a holding pattern, increasing fuel consumption and delays. 

This Solution extends the use of TTAs to aircraft from out-of-area and involves air navigation service providers, airspace users and the Network Manager. 

About the Solution 

Due to the nature of long-haul traffic, the usual TTA processes cannot be applied, and a different approach is needed. Under this Solution, long-haul aircraft departing from out-of-area are assigned a TTA before departure. The allocation is done by the arrival airport or terminal manoeuvring area, in collaboration with the airport operation centre. This TTA is passed to the flight crew for the flight crew to adjust their departure time as much as possible. During the flight, the flight crew pass on their estimated times of arrival to the airport operation centre, which then shares them with air traffic control. Approximately four hours before the estimated arrival time, the demand/capacity balance at the arrival time is reassessed. If a demand-capacity imbalance is detected, perhaps because some aircraft could not adjust their departure time in accordance with the TTA, or because unexpected winds affected flight-times, a new TTA may be suggested by the airport operation centre, enabling the aircraft to adjust their flight speeds accordingly. 

The Solution enables sequencing of the aircraft before their entry into lower airspace to optimise flight profiles, reducing vectoring, holding and fuel consumption, particularly in those periods and locations where night flight restrictions are in place. It also helps prevent demand-and-capacity imbalance at airport opening time caused by unregulated flights arriving from out-of-area. In trials, the Solution reduced flight time from entry waypoints by an average of 40-110 seconds (depending on the waypoint). 

The Network Manager is in the loop all along, thereby ensuring that the network always has the most up-to-date information from long-haul flights. Information is received by business-to-business uplink channels, enabling the Network Manager to update flight profiles and be aware of the airport targeted landing sequence. Archived flight data can also be retrieved for statistical and analysis purposes.

The Solution takes into consideration airspace users’ preferences (whenever it is possible) and those with more than one flight in the sequence can swap their flights and exchange TTAs for specific flights. The Solution is supported by a dedicated arrival management tool that computes the local TTAs and transfers them to the airlines.

Benefits 

   • Improved predictability of long-haul flights
   • Increased efficiency and resource allocation
   • Maintained safety levels
   • Flexibility for airspace users
   • Reduced fuel consumption and emissions
 

Datapack

PJ25_xSTREAM_D2.1.2_Contextual_Note_xStream_Solution 
Appendix-E-xStream-Methodology_v2 
Appendix-F-EXE-VLD-06-001
Appendix-G-EXE-VLD-06-002 
Appendix-H-EXE-VLD-06-003 
Appendix-I-EXE-VLD-07-001 
Appendix-J-EXE-VLD-07-002 
Appendix-K-EXE-VLD-07-003 
Appendix-L-EXE-VLD-08-001  
Appendix-D-xStream-Self-Assessment   
Solution_25.02_D2-1-DEMOR-Main_Doc 
i-xStream_Summary_Document_01
i-xStream_Summary_Document_02
i-xStream_Summary_Document_03