AIRLINES WHICH DO not subscribe to the future air-navigation system (FANS) risk being left behind as others reap the financial benefits resulting from the more efficient route structure and reduced delays the system will make possible.
The warning came as the industry met for the Flight International Airline Navigation Conference in Amsterdam on 25-27 September. Speaking of the "...unresolved, not to mention delicate" issue of those for whom equipping with the FANS is either " impractical or too costly", AlliedSignal's strategic-alliances programme director, Ben McLeod, made it clear that non FANS-equipped airlines "...will likely not have equal access to optimum flight trajectories".
United Airlines' flight-management-systems procedures manager Tom Graff agrees saying that, "...the operating benefits are being offered to those who equip their fleets and adopt new procedures. Those who do not participate should be warned that their choice not to participate could result in their financial demise".
Many at the conference talked openly about the ultimate potential of the FANS, frequently referred to as "free flight", which Graff describes as the "removal of restrictions to the flight and ground operations of aircraft". It will, he says, give tomorrow's pilots "undreamed-of freedom" in instrument-flight-rules operations. Free flight "...represents a gigantic cultural change in an industry that has grown too accustomed to the status quo", says Graff. An airline's ability to take advantage of the new freedoms will determine its competitive position in the industry, he adds.
Graff claims, that using FANS runway acceptance rates can be safely increased, by nearly 50% above the rates achievable today. This will cause air-traffic flow-management restrictions to "disappear" at today's traffic densities, and will accommodate growth "for the next ten years without additional runways".
United has calculated its annual losses caused by inadequate air-traffic-system capacity and inefficiency at just over $1 billion annually. The airline has already equipped its Boeing 747-400 fleet with the FANS-1, and demonstrated potential near-term savings of around $750,000 a year for a Boeing 747-400 in the recent series of Pacific region FANS-1 tests. The airline began transpacific FANS-1 operations on 2 September (Flight International, 27 September-3 October).
Graff stresses, however, that the FANS-1 in the Pacific region "will not permit mature free-flight operations". Separations, initially reduced to 80km (50 miles) lateral and longitudinal, are planned for 1996 operation, he says, "and a further reduction to 30 miles" is considered probable.
Source: Flight International
