Enaire, Spain’s air navigation service provider (ANSP), has devised a tool to monitor the shortcuts air traffic controllers steer flights on in a bid to save time and fuel, thus enabling an impact assessment of the more direct routings.
With its new air traffic management (ATM) tool, Enaire is a finalist in the World ATM Congress’ Maverick awards.
Direct clearances granted by air traffic control saved about 7 million nautical miles in Spanish airspace, preventing the emission of 243,000 metric tons of CO2, according to Enaire.
When conditions allow, air traffic controllers regularly provide shortcuts—instead of letting an aircraft fly along a planned route with several turning points. The new tool “identifies the points where controllers take the action to clear a direct,” Enaire quality and environment manager Jose Antonio Aznar said. The tool then calculates the distance and fuel saved.
Results can be consulted in various ways—aggregated over the year, on a given route or for a particular flight, for instance. The feature is part of a broader monitoring tool that Enaire calls Perseo.
The results can be a basis for redesigning airspace. If a shortcut is seen to be frequently used, the ANSP can decide to create a permanent direct route.
In contrast, they cannot be used to set targets such as “shortcuts reduced fuel consumption by x% last year, let’s have the same improvement this year.” A shortcut is only granted if conditions permit. “It is not something you can plan,” Aznar said.
Enaire started the project in 2018 and the shortcut monitoring tool has been in service since October 2019.
“It feeds from algorithms we had for other purposes, such as detecting controller actions and comparing an actual route with the original flight plan, but the whole idea is quite new,” Aznar said. As raw data, it essentially needs a radar track.
Could the tool be sold to other ANSPs? Aznar answers positively. It is quite easy to adapt and new parameters could be entered, he said.
