US airports will soon deploy a revolutionary new software capability that will allow the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) air traffic organisation, airlines and airport ground operations to more precisely determine the ideal time for aircraft push back from the departure gate and directly proceed for take-off, thereby ensuring greater certainty of timely aircraft departure for travelling passengers.
When deployed across the initial batch of 27 airports, the new air traffic scheduling technology will save more than seven million gallons of fuel every year and eliminate more than 75,000 tonne of CO2 emissions annually.
The FAA’s new surface management concept, which was originally developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport will be the first American airport to feature the air traffic scheduling technology.
“The future of flight must be more sustainable and environmentally friendly,” said Steve Dickson, FAA Administrator. “This new capability as part of a flight merging system has a double benefit: It reduces aircraft emissions and ensures air travellers experience more on-time departures.”
Timely Savings
Prior to the development of the revolutionary Integrated Arrival, Departure, and Surface (IADS) technology, it was difficult to accurately predict aircraft movement times, forcing air traffic managers to keep bigger buffers between scheduled flights, often leading to delays at congested airports with a long line of aircraft on the taxiway.
This resulted in delayed flight departures and increased fuel consumption and emissions. The newly developed suite of airport operations tools, allow gate pushbacks to be calculated more precisely at busy hub airports, thereby minimising taxi delay and ramp congestion, allowing aircraft to directly proceed to the runway for their scheduled departures.
Pamela Whitley, FAA Assistant Administrator for NextGen said waiting in line on a taxiway is not part of the flight plan. “Through a productive partnership between the FAA, NASA and the airlines, we now have technology that brings better predictability of aircraft movements on and above our busiest airports. This will yield benefits for air travellers and for the environment.”
The innovative IADS solution is another effort in the attempt by the FAA and NASA to tackle climate change and making transportation, especially aviation, more sustainable. During testing of the IADS technology at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, minimising taxi delays and ramp congestion resulted in annual fuel savings of 275,000 gallons, equivalent to a Boeing 737’s fuel burn across 185 flights between New York and Chicago.
Over the course of testing the IADS technology over more than 3,600 departing flights, delays were reduced by 916 hours, equivalent to reducing 15 minutes of waiting time on a taxiway. The use of the NASA developed surface movement software at a single airport could reduce C02 emissions by eight tonnes daily, resulting in 2920 tonnes of annual CO2 savings.
The FAA has said that IADS will be deployed as part of its new Terminal Flight Data Manager (TFDM) programme across a total of 89 American airports. The initial deployment list of 27 airport covers Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago Midway, Chicago O’Hare, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Denver, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Houston Bush, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Newark, New York JFK, New York La Guardia, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington Dulles, Washington Reagan National.
Testing To Perfect
NASA originally began development of the new airport surface management concept with the aim of minimising taxi delay and ramp congestion to reduce fuel burn and CO2 emissions. This effort was taken up under its Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) project. NASA spent six years developing and demonstrating the technology, which it then handed over to the FAA for commercial deployment.
Over the course of the ATD-2 programme, during testing by the FAA and NASA at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, and at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and Dallas Love Field Airport in Texas, they were able to demonstrate fuel savings and emissions reductions along with time savings for airlines and the flying public. The FAA also performed extensive testing on the IADS software over a nearly four year period, receiving technology and knowledge from NASA to conduct demonstrations.
NASA invests a significant amount of time and effort to develop technologies that make commercial aviation more efficient and its ATD portfolio included two other projects (ATD-1 and ATD-3), which have also been completed. NASA developed new ground-based and flight deck technologies as part of the ATD-1 programme that enabled use of fuel-efficient procedures throughout the entire arrival phase of flight.
Following its successful development, the FAA is now in the final stages of its implementation in partnership with industry. NASA’s ATD-3 initiative was to make use of real-time inputs including wind and weather conditions and other air traffic, to provide pilots and air traffic managers with options to adjust aircraft flight paths for greater efficiency.
Credits: NASA