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COLUMN

HOW CAN WE OPTIMIZE

AIR TRAFFIC TODAY?

Yann Cabaret, CEO of SITA FOR AIRCRAFT, SITA

With travel rebounding fast to pre-COVID levels, the industry faces signif-
icant congestion challenges, as headlines globally show. This issue is not
restricted to passengers in the airport, but the strain is also back on air
navigation service providers (ANSPs) for the efficient and safe movement But ANSPs do not have to wait for these reforms
of aircraft. Congestion of the global airspace is once again a topic for air to start making positive impacts today. New ATM
transport, along with the associated costs of delays and rising emissions. innovations can give ANSPs a head start on driving
These are significant challenges for a sector already under pressure to operational efficiencies while lowering greenhouse
reduce its environmental impacts to become net-zero by 2050 and build gas emissions.
back leaner following the crippling financial effects of the pandemic. Today,
SITA supports the industry’s carbon net-zero journey to improve efficiency Optimizing airspace with technology
through technology. Operational efficiencies can help the industry save up As an industry-owned organization, SITA is com-
to 10% of carbon emissions. In one of our latest explorations to support mitted to supporting aviation’s key challenges by
airspace optimization, we are collaborating with air traffic management developing collaborative and intelligent digital solu-
(ATM) solution specialist SkySoft-ATM. Combining SkySoft’s capabilities tions. Our joint Proof of Concept (POC) with SkySoft
with SITA’s technology solutions, we aim to assist ANSPs in better man- will adapt SITA’s OptiFlight solution to SkySoft’s air
aging the airspace and supporting more efficient air traffic management traffic management system to bring the same ben-
(ATM) operations. efits to ATM as it does for airlines today. The POC
aims to demonstrate that the solution operates effec-
The challenges of air traffic management today tively in the working environment, enables greater
It’s important to state first the complexity of air traffic management. On the collaboration between ANSPs and airlines, makes
ground, air traffic control (ATC) has the hard job of safely and efficiently operational improvements, and reduces emissions.
tracking and managing thousands of aircraft each day. Guiding pilots OptiFlight provides airline pilots with direct routing
through the airspace, and maintaining safety, requires good communica- recommendations by leveraging machine learning
tion and collaboration. But information flow between an aircraft and the on historical data and 4D weather forecasts so that
air traffic control center covering the respective airspace is not optimal pilots can request their optimized trajectories to ATC.
because air transport operations remain rather siloed today despite efforts. However, due to the lack of flow between the cock-
Today’s air traffic management relies on inefficient legacy systems, as pit and ATC center today, the controller is unaware
reflected by the increasingly crowded skies. For passengers, it is time of the pilot’s intentions, and directs are not visually
wasted on planes circling before landing. For airlines, flight delays cost displayed in the same way as a filed flight plan.
money. In a large and busy airspace like Europe, for example, this represents The integration of OptiFlight and SkySoft’s air traf-
billions of euros every year. Research by the University of Westminster fic management system for the POC will permit
estimated the costs of delays associated with air traffic flow management the recommendations on ATC displays. It will allow
to be €100 every minute for European airlines. The 2014 study is several controllers to anticipate and analyze direct route
years old, so we can probably assume the expense to be higher today. recommendations, integrate them with trajec-
According to EUROCONTROL’s Aviation Intelligence portal, there were tory management tools, and check that safety is
964,041 minutes of en-route air traffic flow management delays in April maintained. This enhancement in data sharing will
2022 in European airspace. facilitate ATC decision-making. OptiFlight’s recom-
mendations, such as shortcuts and more optimal
Considering the impact of COVID-19 on revenue and the rising price of descent approaches, would have a higher chance
fuel, excess fuel use associated with indirect and inefficient flight paths of being granted. The benefits of this would include
and congestion in the air will, without doubt, add further strain to the improved collaboration between the cockpit and
bottom line as well as have wider environmental ramifications. Several ATC and a more efficient airspace – reducing fuel
state programs are in place to modernize air traffic from a financial and burn, costs, and carbon emissions.
environmental need – for example, the Federal Aviation Administration’s
(FAA) Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) and Single The potential today
European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) in Europe cover many initiatives. While ATM modernization initiatives will take some
However, the implementation of some of these initiatives, for instance, time to implement, leading ANSPs can take advan-
the European mandate for Trajectory-Based Operations (TBO) are many tage of new technologies to improve their operations
years away due to regulatory and governance issues around the airspace. today.

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