Airspace Planning
Perhaps the biggest challenge facing airspace planners today is finding an answer to the question, "what is the Communications, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) capability of the aircraft that fly, or intend to fly through my airspace?" The filed flight plan tells only part of the story. Aircraft equipage, especially avionic equipage, changes on a regular basis and the fleet mix flying a particular route may change seasonally, due to changing business demand.
The answer requires seeking information from a myriad of sources including airlines, air navigation service providers, regulators and airports. The IATA Infrastructure Strategy spotted an opportunity to help member airlines and airspace planners by creating an all-encompassing Airspace Planning Survey and a database.
After a number of consultation cycles with airline and airspace planning experts, including ICAO, the survey and database were both developed.
Over the next few weeks, the data provided from airlines will be imported into the database to be used for the generation of reports to assist in airspace planning throughout the world. The database will be updated on an annual basis with information provided by airlines when their fleet equipage changes. Data source confidentiality will be observed.
Airport Development Assists Royal Jordanian
IATA's Airport Development section provided support to Royal Jordanian on 2 December at a meeting between the airline, Airport Authority and Airports International Group (AIG) in Amman. The meeting was based on a review of the following:
- The airport's Master Plan (developed by AdPi/France)
- Conceptual Passenger Terminal design (developed by Foster and Partners/UK)
The meeting was a follow-up to a joint Airport Development / Airport & Air Traffic Control Charges (A&ATC) technical mission held during August 2008. A&ATC Charges are concerned that the new technical operator/consortium responsible for the 25-year Build, Own and Operate (BOT) concession may significantly increase charges following completion of the new 9 million passengers per annum (mppa) passenger terminal (now under construction). The Airport Development section regularly gives support to A&ATC Charges to provide them with sound reasoning why charges should not increase. The Airport Development and A&ATCC are trying to become more active in the Middle East region.
The meeting uncovered a variety of shortcomings with both the Master Plan and pax terminal concept.
Airport Master Plan:
- Development scope is restricted to 12 mppa although the existing twin independent parallel runway operation could easily handle 50 mppa (i.e., AdPi's Master Plan does not go far enough)
- A large percentage of aircraft parking positions are remote - Royal Jordanian does not agree with this
- Future expansion of the terminal building and/or pier/gate/apron facilities has not been considered
Passenger Terminal Concept:
- The current proposed check-in arrangement does not appear to work
- Royal Jordanian's dedicated first/business class check-in area has not been allowed for the new terminal
- Royal Jordanian's domestic operation (2% of traffic) is to the north whilst their main international operation is to the south - this would make transfers difficult
- Passengers transferring between domestic and international and vice versa cannot do so directly (i.e., they have to exit the arrivals hall and then go through the normal check-in process - a time consuming non user-friendly process)
- Royal Jordanian's business class lounge product may be smaller in the new building (in three years time) than they are now - a backward step
- AIG have not considered Royal Jordanian's basic operational requirements at this point in time (e.g., AIG do not know how many gates/stands Royal Jordanian require in the future)
- The proposed Baggage Handling System (BHS) is questionable (e.g., AIG could not confirm if the BHS has two sorters or not - if it only has one, then the whole system could fail if the sorter fails - there does not appear to be redundancy or back-up built into the system)
The AIG confirmed during the meeting that it was their intention not to increase the charges above current levels.
Participation in ICAO Meetings
ICAO created "The Air Traffic Management Operational Goals Independent Expert Review" (IE) under the Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP). The aim of the IE process activity is to advise CAEP, regarding the expected levels of fuel burn, NOx and noise reduction resulting from the enhancement of the ATM system and implementation of CNS/ATM technologies relative to a 2006 base, in the mid-term (10 years) and long-term (20 years). To this end, information concerning aircraft source reduction for noise, NOx and fuel burn are being sought in similar technology assessments.
The group composed of 11 experts from Europe, North America, airports, ANSP & aircraft manufacturers and IATA, met at ICAO from 4-5 December.
During the meeting, the group has received information from several different aviation stakeholders and IATA has presented the constraints faced by airlines during daily operations.
The group has agreed to primarily base their work on data provided by CANSO and IATA.