Linking Existing on Ground, Arrival and Departure Operations

Description of LEONARDO System, a CDM integrated System LEONARDO, Linking Existing On Ground, Arrival and Departure Operations is a research project promoted by the European Commission, with the participation of companies from France (ADP, DNA and Air France), The Netherlands (NLR), Italy (Sicta) and Spain (Aena, Iberia, Indra, Ineco and Isdefe), together with Eurocontrol. The objective of Leonardo is to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) processes supported by the integration of existing tools for arrival (AMAN), departure (DMAN), surface (SMAN), stand allocation and turn-around management. The integration of these decision supporting tools promotes the information sharing among airport stakeholders and makes it possible to provide the airlines, the airports and the air traffic service providers with early and reliable planning updates. In order to achieve these objectives, systems integrating the afore mentioned planning tools were developed and tested at Madrid-Barajas airport and at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport. LEONARDO Operational Concept The main problem that LEONARDO intends to solve is the lack of coordination and efficiency in the context of Airport Arrival, Departure and Ground Operations, which leads to unacceptable amounts of delays and operating costs. In particular, the areas on which the LEONARDO Project is focusing are the followings: Currently, there are existing tools to plan and manage arrivals, departures and ground operations at airports. However, most of these tools work in isolation. It means that each tool uses its own criteria to optimise part of the airport disregarding what is happening elsewhere at the airport. In this situation, only individual operations (i.e. arrivals, departures, stand operations, taxiing) are optimised. An integration of tools would make possible to improve the overall efficiency of the airport. The results of Leonardo experiments give evidence of the benefits achievable applying CDM procedures at the airport level. It has been demonstrated that the airport operator and the airlines improve the safety and the efficiency of their ground processes using ATC planning updates and that the ATC improve air traffic management thanks to the information provided by the airport and the airlines. The different actors involved in airport processes (e.g., air traffic controllers, airline and airport operation centers and handling companies) do not always have all of the information they need when they need it and with a suitable level of reliability. An increased exchange of information and co-operation between these actors could improve the management and planning of available resources. This paper begins with the description of the concept of CDM implemented and tested by Leonardo. Then, the paper reports in detail the results of the experiments carried out, highlighting figures for the benefits achievable and finally, the paper concludes with an overview of what has been developed and achieved. In fact, the concerns described have one thing in common: all airport partners lack up-to-date global situational awareness due to inadequate information sharing or fragmented information flows. In this context, LEONARDO, starting from the Eurocontrol work on CDM [9] [10] [11] [13] and the results of the DAVINCI project [17] [18], it has developed an