European airports are reaping financial and operational benefits by implementing internal collaborative decision-making (CDM).
The relatively low cost of implementing the first phase of CDM can be recovered six-fold in the first year of operation, says Eurocontrol’s airport operations programme manager, Eric Miart, and the US Federal Aviation Administration says on-time departures can increase by 15%.
CDM allows common access to real-time operational information about airport processes, by air traffic control, airline ground-handling agents and catering suppliers. Speaking at the Airports Council International Global Airport Operations Summit in Budapest, Hungary, Miart said CDM can be achieved by networking previously department-centric systems. This enables more efficient use of gate capacity, the rapid use by an aircraft waiting for pushback of a slot that another aircraft cannot use, and precise planning for arrivals.
A joint study of CDM’s benefits by seven European airports revealed major efficiency and cost benefits, said Miart.
Previously the focus was on integrating airports into the air traffic management (ATM) system and the key phrase was “gate-to-gate ATM”, he said. Now the search for efficiencies has moved to the “en-route-to-en-route” sector – the management of the time between top of descent and top of climb.
Vienna airport is already planning to extend CDM to a third phase, which will include real-time data networking with the Eurocontrol Central Flow Management Unit, said Miart.
DAVID LEARMOUNT/BUDAPEST
Source: Flight International
