In current operations, departure and arrival procedures are strategically defined and shared with airspace users (AUs) through publications. This is static data, injected in both aircraft (flight management system (FMS)) and ground (flight data processing system (FDPS)) systems. When AUs file their flight plans, they must consider the whole trajectory from the departing airport to the destination, including the forecast arrival procedure, according to the direction they are supposed to come and join it.

Depending on traffic demand at the destination airport, an aircraft may follow the whole arrival procedure or a shortened route. Some ANSPs publish time slots during which to expect high or low traffic demand. Accordingly, flight crews can then consider the whole or only part of the arrival procedure when calculating how much fuel to load.

Based on the above, Solution #0444 aims at enabling agile responses to variations of operational conditions in the terminal area, such as traffic density, airspace availability, or environmental constraints. The idea is to move away from fixed performance-based navigation (PBN) arrival routes as generally deployed today, providing fixed trade-offs between key performance areas (KPAs). Instead, the dynamic deployment of PBN route structures would provide improved performance (e.g., enhanced capacity during peak periods, fuel-efficient operations during off-peaks, reduced noise footprint at night) in the terminal manoeuvring area (TMA).

Solution #0444 will target high-density/high-capacity operational environments in particular. Environmental benefits can be exploited by performing continuous descent operations (CDOs) as a result of improved arrival sequencing, whilst avoiding negative impacts on capacity, minimising delays, and improving resilience. This will be accomplished by enhancing arrival management (AMAN) systems to support the dynamic use of PBN routes and improving traffic management in the descent phases. This solution follows up on the work performed by SESAR 2020 Projects (e.g., PJ.01-W2-08 Thread B3, etc.) in Wave 2 to continue the development of the best eco-friendly route structures.

Different levels of dynamicity are foreseen in Solution #0444:

1. In the first level of dynamicity, a ground tool such as AMAN, with an appropriate operational horizon, provides estimated and planned arrival traffic demand as well as predicted arrival management delays. ATC then anticipates and decides if/when a specific route structure needs to be deployed based on these predictions. The set of active routes is part of the full set of published arrival/standard terminal arrival route (STAR) procedures.

2. In the second level of dynamicity, AMAN not only supports air traffic controllers (ATCOs) in arrival sequence prediction and management but proposes optimal alternative routes (e.g., depending on KPIs such as delay) and shares them with the ATC system. Furthermore, AMAN strategy will include part of currently commonly used vectoring instructions that are expected to minimise ATCO workload.

The ATCO has the possibility of displaying the proposed trajectory(s) on their controller working position (CWP) for review and acknowledgement or rejection (i.e., representing aspects of a “what-if” context) and proposing them, via controller–pilot data link communications (CPDLC)/voice, to the pilot. At this point, the FMS must be able to display the proposed trajectory in a fast and immediately comprehensible manner, calculate its flyability and aircraft energy management, and swiftly send to the ATCO an accept or reject response to the route proposal. Once the pilot accepts the new trajectory (and the CPDLC message is acknowledged), the ATC system consistently updates the trajectory, AMAN updates accordingly, and recalculates the optimal trajectories for subsequent arrivals.

Furthermore, Solution #0444 will investigate how AMAN’s trajectory prediction may benefit from the availability of extended project plan (EPP) data and determine the necessary processes for AMAN to effectively incorporate EPP data alongside FDPS data.

Solution #0444 high-level objectives:

• Analysis of benefits of dynamic allocation of STARs in TMA route structures (e.g., Milan area)

• Trade-off and selection of the best route option considering environmental benefits as well as the impact on the airspace structure and the air and ground systems

• Identification of inter-sector coordination needs

• Identification of air/ground (A/G) integration needs

• Enhanced AMAN function development to support dynamic route updates as well as consideration of FMS-provided flight performance constraints (e.g., via AMAN–FDPS–FMS interactions)

• Enhanced AMAN functionality development for runway balancing to support and investigate aspects of integrated arrival–departure management

• Interoperability validation focusing on A/G integration

• Pilot and ATCO in-the-loop simulations for validating the solution

• Improved collaboration between pilots and controllers in the planning and execution of the flight, considering ATM, weather, and aircraft performance constraints

• Improved management of vertical constraints by the onboard avionics and procedures

• Exploration of the use of CPDLC messages under FL285 with an acceptable impact on the pilot’s workload

Ground system changes foreseen to enable the controller to select the most eco-friendly possible arrival trajectories depending on the traffic situation:

• Ground system requirements definition

• AMAN and CWP prototyping

New avionics to support the crew in adaptation to route dynamicity:

• Air system requirements definition

• Prototyping

• Integration in cockpit simulator (e.g., Airbus cockpit)

Certification impact assessment:

• Standardisation, regulatory impacts

• Environmental impact assessment

• Initial cost–benefit analysis