EVALUATION OF NIGHT ROUTE NETWORK ON FLIGHT EFFICIENCY IN EUROPE

Author(s)

Tomislav Mihetec - University of Zagreb, Faculty of Transport & Traffic Sciences, Vukelićeva 4, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia -

Denis Odić - EUROCONTROL, Route Network and Airspace Structures Development - Airspace Design and Analysis, Brussels, Belgium -

Sanja Steiner - University of Zagreb, Faculty of Transport & Traffic Sciences, Vukelićeva 4, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia -

Abstract

There are many different concepts and definitions for the flight efficiency, where every stakeholder involved in air transport has its own perception on flight efficiency. Flight efficiency concept is based on trade-offs between safety, airspace capacity, fuel consumption, flying distance, time distance, time cost, fuel cost etc. Flight time and flying distance which has impact to fuel burn and operation costs to airspace users are mainly generated by deviations from the optimum trajectories. According to the Performance Review Commission (PRC) Report in 2009 average en-route extension in Europe was 47.6 km, with the year on year improvement of 1.2 km. The PRC Report emphasized that there is constant increase of medium/long haul flights operated by aircraft operators in Europe while short haul flights are decreasing. One of the issues, concerning flight efficiency in Europe, is that aircraft operators are not using night routes sufficient during flight planning process. This paper is presenting flight efficiency for the traffic demand using night route network and not using it at all. Flight inefficiency is expresses by the agreed performance indicators: distance difference (NM), duration difference (min), fuel combustion difference (kg) and CO2 emission (t) environmental indicator.