#future atm

The future ATM (Air Traffic Management) system will aim to provide a tenfold increase in safety, a 10% reduction in fuel burn, a 10% reduction in emissions, a 50% reduction in ATM costs and an increase in capacity by a factor of 3.

The future air traffic management system will adopt a performance based approach to achieve the European Commission objectives of the SESAR programme. These goals are expected to be achieved through:

A transition from airspace to trajectory based operations. TBO will require a new approach to airspace design and planning.Traditionally, Air Traffic Management (ATM) has grown within the constraints of an airspace based paradigm and as such end-to-end trajectory was given little consideration. This airspace-centric view leads to trajectories effectively being bent to fit within defined volumes of sky. Trajectory based operations should more easily facilitate: user preferred routings, user preferred time of arrival, 4D trajectories and the sharing of this trajectory information with all relevant stakeholders via SWIM (System Wide Information Management). Should trajectory intervention be required (e.g for weather or deconfliction) the downstream effects can be more easily considered. Overall, uncertainty will be removed, leading to a capacity increase.

Collaborative planning. In future, ATM decisions should be made collaboratively, with all stakeholders (such as airline operations centres (AOC), airport operations and pilots) being consulted. Collaborative decision making will be supported by SWIM which will allow the power of shared decisions to be fully exploited; ensuring that the priorities of the AOC and airport are considered during all stages of flight. Factors such as fleet management priorities and fuel consumption figures can be shared to provide benefits to system users. Collaborative planning and decision making will increase flexibility and efficiency, allowing capacity to be managed responsively. In future flights will be managed from gate to gate, with increasing levels of automation.

Integrated airport operations. When airports are linked to the rest of the ATM system efficiency gains can be achieved. Airport operations will benefit directly through greater adherence to slot times due to efficiencies found in aircraft turn-round and pre-departure sequence. A-CDM (Airport Collaborative Decision Making) is a key enabler in the integration of the airport with the rest of the network – Charles de Gaulle and Brussels airports are both integrated into the network and report impressive environmental savings. Paris CDG has seen a 7% reduction in taxi times which relates to a daily saving of 14.5 tonnes of fuel. Brussels however, has reduced taxi-out and taxi-in times by 25% and 15% respectively since introducing A-CDM, saving airlines 7,200 tonnes of fuel annually.