3.2 Benefits of Air-Carrier Fleet-Wide Optimization
While the benefits described above make a case for maximizing equipage to allow individual flights to obtain benefits, there is actually one layer of control which constrains the flexibility of the flight deck but substantially increases user benefits. This is represented by the Aeronautical Operational Control (AOC) facilities that provide flight scheduling and planning services for their aircraft. Each air carrier fleet represents a sub-system that operates within the overall National Airspace System. DAG-TM maximizes the opportunity for these sub-systems to self-optimize. This provides perhaps the strongest mechanism for improving the performance of the entire NAS.
Air carriers (both scheduled airline and cargo operations) have very time-consequential objectives. In general, operators need to get their aircraft to their destinations on time for connectivity. In the case of scheduled airlines, the schedule is their primary performance metric (vital to connectivity of crews, equipment, and resources). In addition, air carriers desire predictability in their flight operations in order to minimize excess buffers in their schedule (leading to maximum productive use of capital resources). However the NAS is a very dynamic environment that poses significant challenges to meeting these objectives. DAG-TM provides the flexibility to these operators to respond in real-time to changes in the NAS in ways that optimize their own objectives. This is enabled through real-time sharing of information between the ATSP and AOCs. The operators may then utilize this information to modify and optimize their operations within the dynamic constraints of the ATM system.
The major cargo and scheduled airline operators use a hub-and-spoke system. This enables a large increase in the efficiency of their operations. In the hub-and-spoke system, flights are scheduled such that aircraft arrive from scattered spoke airports to a central hub airport in closely-timed banks. The passengers and crew may then transfer to connecting flights which then transport them to other spoke destinations. While this hub-and-spoke system introduces its own challenges into the dynamics of the NAS, it also provides a significant opportunity to air carriers under DAG-TM.
In today’s operations, when dynamic conditions cause delays to flights, airlines often do not know about these delays until, at best, the aircraft are close to their destination airports. This allows them very little flexibility to adapt to these constraints. In DAG-TM, the AOC will have updated information on each flight from the moment the flight plan is filed through when the flight arrives at the gate. This will allow them the ability to see real-time changes to the estimated arrival time (ETA). AOCs will now have the opportunity to modify the desired arrival times of their fleet of aircraft to optimize their operations. These new arrival times can then be transmitted to their aircraft in mid-flight, thereby allowing the aircraft, utilizing DAG-TM technologies, to replan their trajectory in real-time to meet the new arrival target. This represents a capability to allow the AOC to get their most important flights in first. It is likely that this will increase the connectivity of passengers, cargo, flight crews and aircraft, thereby reducing the downstream propagation of delay.
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本文链接地址：Concept Definition for Distributed Air/Ground Traffic Management (DAG-TM)(13)
