En-Route Traffic Overflows Versus Arrival Management Delays

Abstract

This paper presents a sensitivity analysis on the potential interactions between arrival management and network management when extending the arrival horizon. The analysis focuses on regulated en-route traffic overflows and on arrival management delays. It relies on a modeling of arrival management delays, capturing the effect of arrival management horizon and the interaction with the network management by setting delay constraints. The model was applied on 50 days of peak periods traffic demand toward the four busiest European airports with more than 25,000 flights. The results reveal two effects of the potential interactions. First, when network management regulations are not integrated by the arrival management, traffic overflows may occur for extended horizons. For a 400 NM horizon, overflows up to were detected (95% percentile). Secondly, when regulations are integrated, overflows disappear but flight efficiency is slightly reduced with a shift from en-route and ground delays towards terminal delay. For a 400 NM horizon, this shift is, respectively, of 35 and 11 s, leading to an increase of terminal delay of 46 s (). These results raise the question of tradeoff and level of performance expected in terms of capacity limits tolerance.