The recent news about the first third party approval of a Required Navigation Performance (RNP) procedure at Bradley Field in Hartford, CT, makes it clear to me that Performance-based Navigation (PBN) is likely to take off in a big way. The huge demand for these procedures and the low rate at which the FAA had been able to produce them led to the idea of third party providers. Last year the FAA approved GE Naverus and Jeppesen as third party providers of RNP approach procedures.

 

RNP procedures have been adopted all over the world. It all started in Alaska in the mid-1990s. There were numerous airports surrounded by difficult terrain. Traditional approach procedures were unsuitable for getting aircraft in and out of these areas with tight terrain under instrument conditions. The use of GPS-based RNAV with special crew training enabled aircraft to thread their way through terrain-challenged areas to land during instrument conditions at airports that would be otherwise inaccessible. The use of RNP procedures grew as many other terrain-challenged locations in the U.S. and internationally began using them.

As time went on, since RNP procedures take advantage of the greater accuracy available with GPS and therefore take up less airspace, people realized that RNP procedures could be used to squeeze new approach paths into tighter spaces. They could fit into spaces that previously were too small for conventional approach paths, and they typically were shorter, so they reduced fuel, carbon and noise. Although little has yet been done, PBN offers the potential for similarly impressive gains during the departure and cruise phases of flight.

Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM) was introduced in the U.S. in the 1970s in response to the fuel crisis of that era. The airlines complained in particular about the excess fuel they carried and burned due to the excessive holding over New York. A group of innovative individuals out of the FAA’s Jacksonville Center developed some of the initial technologies and procedures to begin balancing demand against available capacity at congested airports. Soon, holding was nearly eliminated. In 1981, when the air traffic controllers went on strike, ATFM took on crucial importance. The system was being propped up by a fraction of the controller workforce, mostly supervisors who worked long hours to keep flights moving. All flights were held at the gate and could not depart until explicitly approved, so that demand could be safely handled by the capacity-limited system.

In the mid-1990s, the FAA and airline industry began working together to create the Collaborative DecisionMaking (CDM) environment. Prior to CDM, the FAA had limited visibility into the airlines’ operation. The only flight schedule information they had was the Official Airline Guide, which came out every two months and contained outdated information when it was printed, not to mention two months later at the end of the cycle. Little or no information was shared, since there was no motivation to do so. In fact, there were outright disincentives; more on that some other time. CDM took off because some of the fundamental incentives were changed to encourage the FAA and airlines to share more timely and accurate information. CDM now includes business aviation, general aviation and the military. The FAA and users each were better able to achieve their respective objectives and better support each other in the process.

During the last 10 years, ATFM has further evolved. The initial focus on balancing demand and capacity across the system has expanded to include an integration of all of the phases of flight; gate-to-gate, as well as actions well before and after gate-to-gate. ATFM today includes synchronization across the system and across all phases of flight – gate, ramp, surface, departures, cruise, arrivals and surface, ramp and gate at the destination. It optimizes the use of scarce resources and addresses constraints during normal and off-normal operations, all in an FAA-user collaborative environment.

As we begin to implement NextGen, the marriage of PBN and ATFM will produce substantial synergies. PBN provides greater efficiency and effective capacity by consuming less airspace and enabling higher traffic throughput in constrained airspace. ATFM balances overall capacity and demand, integrates and synchronizes all phases of flight and supports FAA-user collaboration to enable each stakeholder to better attain its own objectives. Together, PBN and ATFM can enhance capacity and make far better use of that new-found capacity. PBN use should be expanded to the departure and cruise phases of flight. ATFM can use that additional capacity to satisfy more demand and extract more value out of that capacity through synchronization and collaboration.

The marriage of PBN and ATFM provides an early opportunity to implement the best-equipped, best-served (BEBS) concept. ATFM concepts, technologies and procedures can provide a higher level of service to those flights that have higher levels of PBN capabilities. These incentives could encourage users to equip sooner. A faster rate of equipage means more benefits at an earlier time, which always makes for a stronger business case, not to mention a happier and more supportive industry.