Stakeholders representing airports, air navigation service providers, airlines and the Network Manager had the opportunity to visit the target-time management and airport operations plan (AOP) - network operations plan (NOP) exercise, which took place in Madrid from the 9 to 25 May. The aim was to show how network usage can be optimised through a better collaboration and more effective sharing of data between stakeholders.
Four airports - Barcelona, Madrid, Alicante and Palma - and flow managers from three area control centres (ACCs) – Barcelona, Madrid and Palma - took part in the trial.
The trial was run in shadow mode, using the Network Manager Validation Platform (NMVP), a prototyping and validation environment. This platform allowed “hotspots” (i.e. where traffic demand exceeds capacity) to be created; these were then managed by applying target times to a limited number of flights. The initial selection of flights and target times was performed by an airport impact assessment tool (AIMA).
Departure and arrival planning data extending up to a 24-hour horizon were dynamically exchanged between the four airports and the Network Manager: the aim was to increase network predictability.
The trial validated the benefits to airlines and airports, as well as the Network Manager. In essence, it showed that AOP-NOP integration delivers greatly increased predictability and accuracy. It is a strong enabler for the target time management concept.
Better predictability also makes for substantially enhanced situational awareness; it speeds up decision-making and helps with the efficient resolution of hotspots.
Solving hotspots by using local business rules, aiming to maintain the airline schedules, reduces drastically the number of impacted flights and reduces delay propagation.
During the visitor’s day, participants were presented with a clear overview of the concepts under validation, an overview of the exercise set-up and the available initial results. The day was a great opportunity for stakeholders to provide additional input and raise questions to the validation team, composed of staff from AENA, ENAIRE, Indra and Eurocontrol. The event fostered interesting discussions between the different stakeholder groups. If one thing came out of this day, it was the fact that sharing of data between airports, airlines, ANSPs and the Network Manager is important, but the timeliness of data sharing is key.
The validation team considered this visitor day as an important contributor to the exercise results, and the concerns and recommendations will be taken into account for the validation report as well as for future trials.