FAIR STREAM: Common approach to increase flight efficiency

The project consortium is led by DSNA (Direction des Services de la Navigation Aerienne) and combines the expertise from both the air navigation service providers DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung, DSNA and skyguide as well as the airlines Air France, Swiss, Lufthansa, Regional and Delta. In addition, Airbus Pro Sky and EUROCONTROL are contributing with their special knowledge on aircraft behaviour and network management. The flight trials will be performed with commercial flights and existing technical systems involving the airports of Munich, Paris and Zurich. They will be conducted in May/June and September/October 2013.

Maurice Georges, CEO DSNA, stated: It is essential now to have a strong synergy between the SESAR programme and the initiatives of FABEC. The FAIR STREAM project illustrates perfectly this cooperation. I hope that this new operational concept will make possible real progress in terms of safety, capacity and environment due to a smoother flight profile from departure to arrival.

Concretely, the objective of the FAIR STREAM project is to pave the way for the use of target time of arrival (TTA) instead of calculated take off time (CTOT). This demand capacity balancing (DCB) measure should allow better management of the capacity all along the flight and at the destination airport. The FAIR STREAM project will evaluate the benefits of the TTA concept on predictability and flight efficiency, validate the capability of on-board and ground systems and evaluate how flight crews, air traffic controllers, and local and regional flow managers can handle the procedure as well as the impact on traffic complexity and staff workload.

Air France:
Jacques Verrière, A380 Captain and VP Flight Operations Technical Support The FAIR STREAM project will perform the first flight demonstrations moving from the existing ATFM slot departure (Calculated Take Off Time CTOT) to a target time to meet where the ATC congestion is actually. With such a change of the ATFM procedure, Air France expects to demonstrate that the predictability of the air traffic will sufficiently be improved with the existing airborne equipment, allowing Flow Management Position to optimise the declaration of the available ATC capacity. Once applied everywhere in Europe, ATFM delays currently encountered every day should be significantly reduced.

Deutsche Lufthansa, Regina Klotz, Vice President Cockpit Capacity & Operation Support Frankfurt:
'FAIR STREAM is a great opportunity to engage in the evolution of a more efficient air traffic management system. In todays challenging economic and infrastructural environment for airlines we expect to show possible areas of development in areas like fuel saving as well as higher predictability of flight schedules.'

DFS, Robert Schickling, desg. COO:
FAIR STREAM is a common project of airlines and air navigation services providers in the core area of Europe. The flight trials we are conducting will concentrate on arrival predictability and efficiency. The FAIR STREAM project will contribute to SESAR: the live trials will allow to validate the feasibility of the use of a Target Time of Arrival (TTA), the information exchange between service providers and airspace users and to have a better idea of the risks before the subsequent SESAR trial.'

Skyguide, Alex Bristol, COO:
This project is an excellent opportunity to prove the value of collaboration among airlines, aircraft manufacturers and other air navigation service providers to improve the efficiency of the network.