DAVID KAMINSKI-MORROW / LONDON
Move comes after broadening of US-focused framework to cover Europe and Asia-Pacific
Boeing has listed 25 basic principles on which a future air traffic management (ATM) system should be based after broadening a preliminary US-focused framework to cover European and Asia-Pacific needs.
While the principles set out by Boeing Air Traffic Management hold few surprises, they include specific criteria about the performance of a next-generation ATM system in terms of capacity, delays and airspace user expectations.
Having drawn up 174 system requirements two years ago to define a global ATM system, the company whittled them down to 16, centred on US needs. After talks with 26 European and 35 Asia-Pacific stakeholder groups - including airlines, airport operators and airspace authorities - in late 2002 and this year, Boeing ATM has raised the number of requirements to 25.
"After considerable discussion it was recognised that the [174 original] requirements as defined were not binding for a future ATM system," says Boeing. "It was decided that, to move beyond the immediate quandary, the next step should be to identify, extract and prioritise the most critical stakeholder needs from the list of requirements."
The requirements establish that a future system should meet demand with a good level of service and deliver at least 98% of theoretical airport capacity when needed, while aiming to match the throughput of traffic in instrument conditions to that of visual flight rules traffic by 2020.
Access to runways and airspace should not drop below 2002 levels, while ATM-attributed delays of over 30min should not exceed levels reached in a fixed baseline year - a baseline which differs between the Asian, European and US regions.
The system should give users the ability to operate to within 98% of the costs of time and fuel associated with their preferred flight profile, demonstrate increased flexibility to real-time changes in users' needs, and improve the predictability of gate-to-gate times. ATM-related accident and incident rates should fall faster than the growth in operations and a future ATM system should prioritise security and defence.
Developers of future systems, it adds, should pay particular attention to human factors research, the need to mitigate environmental impacts, and establishing a genuine cost-benefit case for concepts such as interoperability.
"We strongly believe the future ATM system must emerge from the meaningful input of as many stakeholders and system users who wish to participate in its conception," says Boeing, claiming the framework represents the industry's first high-level collaborative effort to develop such requirements.
Source: Flight International
