Free Routing Airspace in Europe
Implementation concepts and benefits for
airspace users
Lennert Bentrup - City University London
[email protected]
Max Hoffmann - Lufthansa Systems GmbH & Co. KG
[email protected]
ICRAT 2016, Philadelphia, 06/21-06/25
How much profit does a ticket
generate?
How much is left in average after deduction of all costs?
Ticket price
-16.8%
Labour costs
-22.1%
Taxes and fees
0.9%
Profit
-25.8%
Fuel costs
-34.4%
Other costs*
*Aircraft acquisition, maintenance, etc.
How much profit does a ticket generate? Source: Bundesverband der Deutschen Luftverkehrswirtschaft e.V. (BDL), 2015.
[Price of tickets - Is flying too cheap?]. (In German) [Redrawn and translated from German]
Free Routing Airspace
 New concept of flight execution
 Trajectories not based on a fixed network of
waypoints interlinked with airway segments
 Airspace user chooses trajectories using user-defined
segments between published and/or user-defined
points
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Example airspace with structural
restrictions
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Exemplarily ATS routing options for
EGLL-UUDD flight
January 2016
Map data: Google, Data SIO; NOAA; U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO, Image Landsat
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Exemplarily FRA routing options for
EGLL-UUDD flight
January 2016
Map data: Google, Data SIO; NOAA; U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO, Image Landsat
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Advantage of FRA
 Cost and Fuel savings due to more flight planning
opportunities
 Better usage of prevailing winds
 More options to avoid expensive airspaces
 More options to avoid restricted areas
 Might address capacity problems, too
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Aim of study
 Estimate benefits that Free Routing Airspace can
provide for airspace users with regard to
 Flight efficiency
 Costs savings
 Fuel savings
 Based on recent and future FR developments in Europe
 with focus on cost saving potential for different airspace
designs
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Agenda
Current status of Free
Routing Airspace in
Europe
Presentation of
results and discussion
what impact different
design options have
on potential benefits
Detailed description
of used environment
for trajectory
calculations
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Conclusion and
outlook on possible
follow-up studies
Current status of Free Routing
Airspace in Europe
Current status of Free
Routing Airspace in
Europe
Presentation of
results and discussion
what impact different
design options have
on potential benefits
Detailed description
of used environment
for trajectory
calculations
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
10
Conclusion and
outlook on possible
follow-up studies
Status of Free Routing Airspace in
Europe
Development and implementation of FRA
 initiated and coordinated by EUROCONTROL in 2008
 Forms part of common Flight Efficiency Plan [1]
 Developed in cooperation between IATA, Civil Air Navigation
Services Organisation (CANSO), and EUROCONTROL
 Becomes standard in 2022, above FL310 [2]
[1] Source: EUROCONTROL, European Free Route Airspace Developments, Edition 1.0, 16 March 2015
[2] Source: European Commission, 2014, Official Journal of the European Union, Implementing Regulation (EU) No716/2014 – ANNEX 3.3
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Status of Free Routing Airspace in
Europe
Source: EUROCONTROL, European Route Network Improvement Plan - Part 2 - ARN Version 2015 - 2019
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Status of Free Routing Airspace in
Europe
Source: EUROCONTROL, European Route Network Improvement Plan - Part 2 - ARN Version 2015 - 2019
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No standardized operational
requirements
Differences can be:
 Availability
 Volume availability
 Time Availability (day, night, 24 hours)
 Flight planning rules
 Vertical and Horizontal entry/exit
 Usage of intermediate (published and unpublished) points for
flight planning
 Min and Max segment length
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Detailed description of used
environment for trajectory
calculations
Current status of Free
Routing Airspace in
Europe
Presentation of
results and discussion
what impact different
design options have
on potential benefits
Detailed description
of used environment
for trajectory
calculations
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Conclusion and
outlook on possible
follow-up studies
Simulation setup
Representative trajectory calculation with Lido/Flight by Lufthansa
Systems
 Designed to find optimized trajectory








Minimum Fuel Track (MFT)
Minimum Cost Track (MCT)
Minimum Time Track (MTT)
Minimum Distance Track (MDT)
Total costs = Fuel + Time + ATC
Traffic Flow Restrictions (TFRs)
NOTAMs of airports, airspaces and traffic
Weather (current and prognoses)
Aircraft performance
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Simulated FRA Europe
Map data: US Dept. of State Geographer, Data SIO; NOAA; U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO, Image Landsat
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Simulation setup (cont’d)
 Single homogenous airspace helps to avoid
inefficiencies (cross-border routing restrictions)
 GND to FL660
 Constant weather conditions: ISA STD and June
 Aircraft: Airbus A320-211 with CFM56 engines and 80%
load factor
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Simulation setup (cont’d)
Flight sample
 Top 997 city-pairs by
passengers carried in
2014
Source: Eurostat
 4 trajectories for each
single flight:




MFT ATS network
MCT ATS network
MFT FRA
MCT FRA
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Overview of used flight sample
configuration
NO TFR
ISA WX
NO UDP
NO TFR
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Presentation of results and discussion
what impact different design options
have on potential benefits
Current status of Free
Routing Airspace in
Europe
Presentation of
results and discussion
what impact different
design options have
on potential benefits
Detailed description
of used environment
for trajectory
calculations
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
21
Conclusion and
outlook on possible
follow-up studies
Ratio of trajectories in FRA with less total costs and
less fuel consumption compared to ATS
trajectories
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Total costs reduction (percentage) due to
FRA trajectories per sample number
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Scenario 4 – The influence of the
maximum segment length
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Fuel consumption reduction (percentage) due
to FRA trajectories per sample number
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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Conclusion and outlook on possible
follow-up studies
Current status of Free
Routing Airspace in
Europe
Presentation of
results and discussion
what impact different
design options have
on potential benefits
Detailed description
of used environment
for trajectory
calculations
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
26
Conclusion and
outlook on possible
follow-up studies
Conclusion and Recommendations
 Expected to provide high benefits
 For all evaluated scenarios the AU can expect high cost and fuel savings
However,
 different implementations characteristics effect the maximum achievable
efficiency
 Design options have influence, but are not independent of each other.
Max segment length does not matter, as long as UDPs are allowed to be
used
 Important step for AU towards improved flight efficiency, in terms of cost
and fuel
 Beneficial for environment
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Conclusion and Recommendations
 Results calculated in optimum airspace
 Restrictions should be as many as needed, but as few
as possible
 restrict only if
 sufficient traffic separation cannot be ensured
 Airport and sector capacity reaches limits
 Flights through restricted airspaces are planned
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Follow-up studies
 Follow-up studies could evaluate the effect of
 Restrictions of already implemented FRA in Europe
 Regional differences due to different published
waypoint densities
 Influence of different weather
Free Routing Airspace in Europe | ICRAT 2016 | L. Bentrup, M. Hoffmann
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