PJ.02 W2 Airport airside and runway throughput

• Solution PJ.02-W2-14 Evolution of separation minima for increased runway throughput.

The solution addresses the refinement and consolidation of static pairwise separation matrixes and weather dependent separation minima for successive arrivals, the development of static pairwise separation matrixes for successive departures and between arrivals and departures. It includes the development and validation of ATCO tools and also covers the potential use of flight-specific aircraft characteristics taken from the eFPL, or from an evolution of the eFPL (e.g. aircraft weight), downlinked from the aircraft.

• Solution PJ.02-W2-21 Digital evolution of integrated surface management.

The solution covers the development (e.g. using new algorithms, artificial intelligence/expert systems) of procedures and required system support for an improved surface traffic management, including extension of the A-SMGCS routing functions and the integration of inputs from airport DCB processes. The solution covers as well the guidance assistance to both pilots and vehicle drivers using Airfield Ground Lighting (AGL), the consolidation of the ‘Follow-The-Greens’ procedures, the exchange of information between ATC and vehicles/aircrafts using airport data link and other guidance means, and the development of enhanced airport safety nets for controllers beyond those delivered in SESAR 1.

• Solution PJ.02-W2-04 Advanced geometric GNSS based procedures in the TMA.

This solution addresses the use of GNSS geometric guidance from the initial approach fix or earlier, in order to make the transition easier in certain MET conditions (e.g. high temperatures). The research will address the potential impact of MET conditions on the safe conduct of advanced curved operations and the required separation minima. The research may also address curved departures, potentially combined with precise geometric altimetry, in order to further develop curved departure routes that turn shortly after take-off.

• Solution PJ.02-W2-17 Improved access to secondary airports.

The solution aims at increasing access to secondary airports in all conditions, including in particular low visibility conditions by developing systems and operational procedures that allow operational credits as considered by the Performance Based Aerodrome Operational Minima (PBAOM). The validation will focus on business aviation, general aviation, rotorcraft and military aircraft.

• Solution PJ.02-W2-25 Safety support tools for avoiding runway excursions.

The solution aims at improving runway condition awareness to increase safety in order to prevent runway excursions (take-off and landing), including the enhancement of runway status information on secondary airports, the on board runway friction coefficient elaboration and the airport runway status model update. The objective is to provide the flight crews with objective and synthetic information elements for them to make the right decisions during take-off, approach, and landing phases.

At capacity constrained airports, traffic demand for runway operations can exceed the runway capacity. With the expected rapid growth in air traffic, there will be an increasing number of capacity-constrained airports for significant periods of each day, and this situation will become even more critical under adverse weather conditions. Airport will have to improve the efficiency of runway operations and their resilience in visually and/or meteorological challenging conditions. This would be achieved in fully integrating surface management tools with other systems including runway occupancy time prediction, wake separation and arrival and departure management (AMAN/DMAN) systems. In turn it will further reduce the number of incidents / accidents at the airport e.g. collisions on the apron and taxiway with traffic and/or fixed obstacles.

Airports and airlines need to enhance their capability to deliver, plan and improve the use of airport resources so that costs, emissions and fuel consumption can be reduced, whilst improving passenger satisfaction.

The delivered solutions are expected to have a positive impact on:

• Airport and Airspace TMA Capacity - Increase runway and airspace throughput (e.g. reducing runway occupancy time, or arrivals and departures wake turbulence separation) and resilience;
• Safety: maintain or increase runway, taxiway and apron safety levels, increase situational awareness, ATC Workload maintained or reduced;
• Improved access to secondary airports, with expected benefits in resilience, cost-efficiency and increased flexibility under non-nominal conditions at the airport;
• Predictability - increased predictability and airport efficiency (e.g. runway occupancy time, runway exit and departure rotation);
• Environmental Sustainability - reduced fuel consumption and noise near the airports