"Friendlier skies for airlines, airports and airport neighbors"

Monday, June 11, 2007

Friendlier skies for airlines, airports
New, more precise navigation systems will help pilots save time, fuel and
may calm runway abutters
By Peter J. Howe
The Boston (MA) Globe


With a big new boost promised from the nation's busiest airline, Southwest
Airlines Co., a long-brewing revolution in US air traffic control is finally
poised for takeoff.

It's a change that could make everyone connected with the aviation business
happier: passengers, pilots, control-tower crews, airline shareholders, and
even airport neighbors.

Comprising an array of technologies dubbed "performance-based navigation,"
the upgrade is sometimes compared to drawing the equivalent of highway
stripes across the airspace around busy US airports. With cockpit software
upgrades and better use of navigation systems , planes will be flying
increasingly precise and direct routes that make far more efficient use of
available air.

For passengers and pilots, it can mean fewer delays and more direct routes
that get them from one place to another faster, and safe landings in rain
and fog conditions that now shut out arriving flights. For airlines, it
means less fuel consumption. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines already
report sav ing tens of millions of dollars annually from initial rollouts of
the changes at their Dallas and Atlanta hubs over the last three years.

For air traffic controllers with the ultra-stressful job of guiding planes
into and out of airports, complicated turn-by-turn radio instructions can be
replaced with a single order to follow a specific takeoff or arrival pattern
programmed into the cockpit computer, like a football quarterback telling a
receiver what pattern to run.

And for residents of communities plagued by jet noise, like East Boston,
Hull, and Winthrop, the system promises to keep planes inside much more
tightly drawn takeoff and arrival paths that can be drawn to reduce overall
noise levels.

"It's almost as if we painted lines in the sky, and every time we could fly
precisely on these lines," Joe Kolshak , Delta's executive vice president of
operations, said in an interview. "What that means for capacity, for safety,
for fuel consumption, it's huge."

Two major elements of the ongoing navigation upgrade are called RNAV, for
area navigation, and RNP, for required navigation performance. They enhance,
and in some deployments supplant, existing ground-based radio navigation
beacons by tapping in to the US Air Force's global positioning system
satellite network. Rolling out the technology requires cooperation between
airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration -- airlines to upgrade
their planes' navigation systems, the FAA to approve special new arrival
approaches and departure lanes and train tower controllers in managing them.

Over the last month, there has been a flurry of announcements about plans to
expand the technologies. Southwest Airlines -- the biggest US carrier ranked
by passenger volume and flight operations -- confirmed it will upgrade all
490 of its Boeing 737s for RNP operations by late next year. Southwest has
hired a Seattle-area navigation software company, Naverus Inc. , to chart
new approaches for cockpit navigation computers into Bradley International
Airport in Windsor Locks, Conn., Manchester Boston Regional Airport in New
Hampshire, T.F. Green State Airport outside Providence, and the 60 other US
airports where Southwest flies.

American Airlines said it will spend $100 million to add area navigation
capabilities to its 300 MD-80 jets, the main workhorses of its 672-jet
fleet. The Federal Aviation Administration, which has approved 155 RNAV
special arrival and departure paths at Logan and 37 other US airports, said
it will approve another 42 by September.

Alaska Airlines reported that thanks to enhanced navigation capabilities,
980 of its flights were saved last year from mandatory diversions during
weather conditions, like low clouds or thick fog, that would have prevented
standard-technology planes from landing. With enhanced navigation, federal
safety laws can allow pilots to land with less visibility through the
cockpit windshield.

Among many other effects, the navigation changes are allowing airlines such
as Delta to begin experimenting with what are called "continuous descent
approaches" to airports. For a pilot, it's roughly like putting the jet in
lowest gear at 35,000 feet and coasting the last few hundred miles in to the
airport. Early results indicate Delta could save 13 million gallons of jet
fuel annually just on flights coming in to its Hartsfield Jackson
International Airport hub in Atlanta, potentially more than $30 million.

"It's a huge improvement, and it is definitely more efficient for the
national airspace system," said Vince S. Polk , an Atlanta tower controller
who is chairman of the safety committee for the National Air Traffic
Controllers Association. Polk said that "as with any other new tool, there
are kinks to be worked out," like how to smoothly handle a flight whose
departure runway gets changed after its departure path has been loaded into
the jet's navigation computer. Still, Polk said, "Safetywise, right now I
feel it's the best thing to do."

Currently, few of the 1,000 to 1,100 daily flights arriving at and departing
from Logan take advantage of the new navigation systems, according to Steve
Kelley , an FAA "airspace redesign" manager. The systems make a dramatically
bigger difference when most or all jets using an airport are flying enhanced
paths, because if only a small minority are, they still have to be given the
wide clearances mandated for planes using less precise navigation.

As part of an ongoing effort to reduce jet noise around Greater Boston and
spread it more evenly, the FAA wants to get more airlines using more RNAV
and RNP flight routes, including having more planes at higher, less noisy
altitudes as they cross over the harbor shoreline and across populated
areas, Kelley said.

In time, the technology could allow Logan to exceed its current rough cap of
120 takeoffs and landings per hour by bunching more planes closer together.
But, Kelley said, "It's not about increasing capacity. It's about improving
predictability [of flight paths] and giving noise relief. It's not about a
capacity gain for us."

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