A new flight planning module promising fuel savings of up to two percent and the resulting carbon emissions reduction was launched by Lufthansa Systems at the Singapore Airshow.
The add-on to Lido Operations Center (Lido OC) performs automated checks of a potential routing relative to current air traffic capacity and flow management rules.
These highly complex rules also known as traffic flow restrictions (TFR) are set by air traffic control authorities to ensure a smooth traffic flow while at the same time optimizing ATC capacity and security.
“Airlines have their preferred company routings and have to check them against the latest ATC rules. If there is a TFR in place then they manually replan a route, and its not necessarily the most efficient,” says Lufthansa Systems ceo Asia Pacific, Norbert Muller.
The new module does this automatically and for the first time considers even partly restricted airways, suggesting by-passes where legally permitted, for the most effective combination of airway segments.
“We have run analysis with three of the 35 airlines using Lido OC and have shown that the TFR module significantly increases efficiency and reduces fuel burn by as much as two percent. It reduces CO2 emissions and saves costs,” Muller says.
Airlines use a set of company routes, or standard route bundles defined by each carrier for its flights. These company routes form the basis for the actual operational flight plan (OFP) on the day of departure.
Before the flight, current parameters such as the weather are incorporated and optimized against each other in regard to costs, flight time or fuel efficiency.
The TFR module enables passenger as well as cargo airlines to create company routes that can be checked on a regular basis, or individual OFPs for each flight. Lufthansa Systems says network carriers, regional and budget airlines alike will directly save costs and emissions with this latest innovation in airline IT.
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Source: FlightGlobal.com
