Central East Pacific Flight Routing

Abstract

This paper examines the potential benefits of transitioning from the fixed Central East Pacific routes to user-preferred routes. A minimum-travel-time, wind-optimal dynamic programming algorithm was developed and utilized as a surrogate for the actual user-provided routing requests. The results of both nominal and wind-optimal routing simulations over a five-day period are presented, and analyzed in terms of four aggregate-level airspace complexity measures, two time-varying airspace complexity measures, the time savings, and the fuel savings associated with the wind-optimal routes. The airspace complexity measures were selected to characterize the relative increase or decrease in airspace complexity associated with adopting alternative routing strategies in the Central East Pacific. Based on the analysis of 15, 24-hour simulations, the relative density of flights, the number of simulated conflicts, and the distribution of flights within a sector were found to vary significantly over the five-day period. For the time-varying complexity measures, the variations in the number of flights within a sector was found to strongly influence the correlation between the nominal and wind-optimal routing results. Finally, the average potential time savings for the wind-optimal routes was found to vary between 4.8 min and 9.9 min per flight depending on where the wind-optimal routing was allowed to begin and end. Similarly, the average fuel savings was found to vary between 192 kg and 347 kg per flight.