Performance Impact Assessment of Reducing Separation Minima for En-Route Operations

Abstract

The required minimum separation distance between aircraft is believed to be one of the limiting factors on airspace capacity. In recent decades, aircraft separation rules have been modified by progressively shortening the required minimum separation distance. Following this trend in the coming years, a further reduction in the minimum separation distance would be expected. Still, a thorough assessment of the impact of this action on air traffic management performance should be carried out before investing in a reduction of separation minima. A Monte Carlo analysis of the en-route Spanish airspace shows that it is worth reducing the en-route minimum separation distance from 5 NM to 3 NM. This paper shows that a separation minima reduction will bring significant fuel savings, flight delay reduction, air traffic controller workload drop, and overall improvement of safety.

Preliminary Impact Assessment of the Ad Hoc Separation Minima: A New Separation Mode

“…Table 1 shows the KPAs and PIs selected for this research. Other studies with similar objectives also used these indicators [36,37]. It can be seen in Table 1 that there is no metric related to safety.…”

Preliminary Feasibility Study of the Ad Hoc Separation Operational Concept

“…Thus, separation management is an area wherein improvement is sought, namely through the implementation of new operational concepts, which include the redefinition of the separation minima and the way they are applied. On the one hand, according to [4] a reduction in the separation minima would provide several benefits in the areas of capacity, safety, and efficiency. On the other hand, a reduction in the separation to a fixed value may not be a valid solution, as not all aircraft and methods of operation are equal.…”