Cooperative Air Traffic Management - Safety correlator airport Frankfurt

By integrating the field of action "air traffic" as a program´s focus of the third aviation research program of the federal government, the socio-economic meaning of the overall system air traffic as well as the therefor connected issues and requirements are taken into account. An important progress that continues beyond approaches mostly limited to sub-systems can only be achieved by a system-wide consideration and under the participation of all important air carriers. An approach which is targeted towards the overall system reflects itself in the textual guidelines of the guiding concept "efficient processes within the air traffic" and underlies the cooperation project proposal Cooperative Air Traffic Management (K-ATM).

Due to the strengthened gears of the processes of the different partners, who are involved in the handling of the air traffic, the performance of the overall system can only be decisively influenced by a superior system consideration integrating all involved air carriers. Offering enough system capacity under maintenance of existing security standards and under consideration of environmental issues is thereby the main focus. Crucial criteria for the competitiveness of all air carriers are thereby a service quality as well as efficiently executing the services. The fulfillment of the named requirements is a special challenge for major international airports with hub function and accordingly high air traffic:

• Major airports within the central European air space are the clock-giving bottleneck concerning the capacity problem , whereby the capacity of the runway normally determines the incoming and outgoing traffic flow.
• The main number of incidents and accidents happen during the take-off- and landing phase, therefor the airport itself (e.g. runway incursions) as well as the extended terminal maneuvering area has to be given special attention concerning the topic safety.
• Environmental issues are discussed especially on the one hand in connection with the noise problem and on the other hand in context of long aircraft dwell times in low altitudes (holding patterns) and therefore high fuel consumption. This makes the airport as well as the surrounding air space an urgent action field, also in reference to the environmental problem.
• An obvious criteria for the service quality of the whole aviation process is the punctuality, it manifests in the connection guarantee for the passenger at the airport as well as keeping the aircraft rotation plan by the airline. Small capacity bottlenecks can already cause clear negative impacts onto the punctuality as major airports normally work on their capacity limit. The base for the service quality seen by the end user is thereby the service quality of airport operators (representative for all ground service provider) and air traffic control.