RISE Project Wins Performance-Environment Award at Single European Skies Awards

NAVBLUE, representing the RNP Implementation Synchronised in Europe (RISE) project Consortium, was pleased to accept the Performance-Environment Award at the Single European Skies award ceremonies, held last week at the World ATM Congress in Madrid.
The Single European Skies Awards were established to recognise initiatives that raise awareness of and motivate Performance Based Navigation (PBN) Implementation as a means to cultivate more efficient European skies through improved accessibility and safety of airports while still enhancing the flight efficiencies that promote social and customer benefits.

The “Performance-environment” category selected the RISE project because of its success in demonstrating, in real world environments, the benefits of performance-based navigation (PBN) in providing shorter approaches and optimized descent profiles thereby reducing fuel burn and CO2 emissions, while providing tracks avoiding noise sensitive zones.

The RISE project excelled at demonstrating its success in several criteria including, contribution to increasing capacity and safety of ATM systems, potential to be replicated over the ATM network; contribution to reducing the impact of air transport on the environment as well as its benefits for both citizens and passengers

The project included a wide range of activities, from the design of more than 40 PBN procedures, validation of these procedures on Full Flight Simulator, to training of the Air Traffic Controllers and flight trials conducted over ten participating airports. The results from the extensive flight trials conducted by RISE partner airlines and ANSPs in France, Greece, Cyprus and Portugal enable wider implementation of RNP in Europe. The collaborative spirit of the RISE project also brought together a number of airlines with a similar philosophy towards developing PBN, demonstrating the benefits of deploying these operational techniques in a synergistic approach along with helping to expand their implantation at other airports.

Through questionnaires completed by Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) and flight crews and through flight data recordings, the project received very positive feedback and has been deemed to be a tremendous success that is bringing to the industry numerous safety enhancements, environmental benefits through reduced fuel consumption and noise disturbances while also providing greater airport accessibility.

The RISE Project is a two year SESAR demonstration project that was led and co-financed through the SESAR Joint Undertaking; it was managed by NAVBLUE, in collaboration with multiple stakeholders including: four air navigation service providers (ANSPs) – DCAC (Cyprus), NAV Portugal, DSNA (France), HCAA (Greece) –, three airline operators - Air France, Novair and TAP Portugal and numerous participant airlines including Aegean, EasyJet, Emirates and Air Corsica.

Above all, the RISE project demonstrates that through collaboration and cooperation between aviation industry stakeholders, working towards a common goal, can lead to outstanding results.