AIRLINE PARTICIPATION:
Five major European airlines – the Lufthansa Group (including Swiss International Air Lines), Air France (including Hop! and Transavia France), Ryanair, British Airways and EasyJet – accounting for 80% of European air traffic formed the Airline Team 2020 (ATEAM) consortium to contribute to SESAR activities such as the xStream VLD project. Led by the Lufthansa Group, these airlines are working closely with the PJ25 xStream consortium to develop, trial and implement tools and processes to help improve air traffic management in Europe. This work includes (shadow-mode) simulations as well as flight trials in all regions of their networks.
LIVE TRIALS:
The xStream ATEAM has taken part, in close cooperation with PJ25, in scenarios and trials with differing levels of completion: design, development, execution and result analysis.
A large number of qualified flights have been conducted so far, spread over four different exercises which took place in 2018.
Three different flight trials took place in Paris:
- Exercise 7-1: Extending the Arrival Manager’s horizon to 300NM around Orly Airport.
- Exercise 7-2: COP Sequencer at Charles de Gaulle Airport, where the delay information is converted into delay minutes and the speed advisory is passed on to adjacent en-route sectors.
- Exercise 7-3: Development of a collaborative decision-making method between ATC and airspace users to establish the optimum arrival sequence, and demonstration of how the use of Target Times of Arrival (TTAs) can improve arrival planning management. This exercise took place at both Lyon and Paris Charles de Gaulle airports.
A further flight trial was conducted for Zurich Airport:
- Exercise 8-3: Integration of the Network Manager into the iStream concept, enabling the Network Manager to have a clearer picture of capacity and predictability.
Shadow-mode trials have also been conducted where live trials would not have been feasible. In addition, extensive simulations and evaluations have been performed, to quantify the benefits of these shadow-mode trials and to develop new concepts that are safe and efficient and can be used throughout the industry.