Effects of Flexible Use of Airspace Availability and Plannability on Fuel Efficiency

Master thesis (2022)

Authors

E. Rodriguez Plaza Aerospace Engineering

Contributors

Joost Ellerbroek (supervisor 1)
J.M. Hoekstra (supervisor 2)
Ferdinand Dijkstra Air Traffic Control The Netherlands (supervisor 2)
Faculty
Aerospace Engineering
Copyright: © 2022 Eneko Rodriguez Plaza
Direct Routing Great Circle Route Flexible Use of Airspace Plannability Fuel Efficiency Airspace
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Published Date

29-08-2022

Language

English

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Faculty

Aerospace Engineering

Abstract

The expected growth of civil air traffic and the inclusion
of advanced systems in the Royal Netherlands Air Force result in more demanding
airspace requirements across all users, making this a scarce resource. To
optimise its usage, military airspaces in Amsterdam Flight Information Region
are used as Flexible Use of Airspace (FUA), which no longer considers airspace
as entirely ‘civil’ or ‘military’, but as a continuum to be allocated
temporarily according to user requirements. Given its importance for
civil-military cooperation, FUA is at the core of the Dutch Airspace Redesign
Programme, considering both a reorganisation of FUA structures and the
plannability policies they are reserved with. In order to inform these
decisions, this study analyses the effect of FUA availability and plannability
on the fuel efficiency of civil commercial traffic. Historical traffic data
from the Eurocontrol R&D data archive is sampled for the month of March
2019 and used in three experiments. On the one hand, Experiment 1 investigates
FUA availability by considering flights losing route efficiency due to FUA
sectors and comparing them with Great Circle Route alternatives and similar
flights historically transiting them. On the other hand, Experiment 2 considers
flights making use of FUA sectors during times when these have been delegated
to civil use to assess the effects of carrying a surplus fuel due to an
insufficient airspace plannability. By proposing new plannability policies, the
hypothetical reduction in fuel consumption as a result of not taking the
surplus fuel is assessed. Lastly, Experiment 3 combines the benefits found in
Experiment 1 with the plannability policies of Experiment 2 to determine the
fuel benefits resulting from a tactical rerouting enabled by the new
plannability concepts. A total of 1,548 simulations have been performed in the
open source air traffic simulator BlueSky to compute the fuel efficiency metrics.
The results suggest that making both the Alpha and Delta sectors completely
available would result in a yearly reduction in fuel consumption of 70,198 and
100,022 tonnes, respectively; 8,908 and 13,301 of which would be saved solely by
adopting a new plannability policy (corresponding to 28,060 and 41,898 tonnes
of CO2). Finally, not carrying a surplus fuel due to this concept would
contribute to an extra 270 and 394 tonnes of fuel consumption being reduced in
2019 (851 and 1,241 tonnes of CO2).