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Flight Phase 5: Taxi and Arrival
What used to happen?
Typically, aircraft arriving San Francisco from Australia and New Zealand will land from the South East on Runway Two-Eight Left (28L) or Runway Two-Eight Right (28R). Upon touchdown, the aircraft will leave the runway via one of the available turn-off ramps, for Taxiway Alpha and begin a taxi to the arrival gate in the International Terminal under a clearance from the ground control at the San Francisco airport.
If the aircraft is cleared to land via 28R, the flight must stop and wait for a clearance to cross the 28L runway, in order to ensure that there will be no conflict with other arriving aircraft. Once cleared to cross 28L, the aircraft will taxi directly to the gate. However, the aircraft may be delayed again if another aircraft has pushed back from the gate.
Although this taxi and surface movement is efficiently managed at the San Francisco Airport, any significant delays that the aircraft may experience during taxi result in inefficiencies for the aircraft.
What are we doing today?
Today’s surface movements at San Francisco will be manually optimized in order to ensure the most efficient, and environmentally beneficial operation possible. Unless weather conditions require intervention, the aircraft will be cleared to land on Runway Two-Eight Left. Consequently the flight will not be required to stop for a runway crossing. Next, the aircraft will be given priority taxi clearance directly to the gate, to avoid potential delays due to surface congestion.
For tonight's flight the taxi in is expected to be in the order of 3 minutes and therefore the aircraft will tonight taxi in on two engines.
Once the aircraft has landed it is normal practise to start the aircraft Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) in the tail of the aircraft to provide power to the aircraft and its air conditioning units once the aircraft engines have been shut down. Minimising the use of the APU is a significant opportunity for airlines to reduce emissions.
San Francisco is one of the few airports where electrical power and air conditioning from the aerobridge have been available for a number of years. For today's taxi in, the APU will not be started, and Air New Zealand's ground handling staff will immediately plug electrical power into the aircraft as soon as the aircraft stops and the left hand engine has been shut down.
Why are we doing it?
Optimization of surface movement activities is part of the gate-to-gate philosophy for efficient and environmentally friendly flight operations. In order to maximize this efficiency while maintaining safety, integrated surveillance of ground traffic will be implemented for airport control and in the cockpit. The flight will also have access to automated tools such as airport layout and taxi route information and runway incursions warnings. Updated pushback information will provide improved surface and departure management.
What does this mean in terms of the bigger picture?
Surveillance of surface movement will provide the basis for more accurate departure time and taxi delay estimates, which when coupled with collaborative decision support tools, will reduce the possibility of aircraft delays on arrival, and enhance overall efficiency for both arriving and departing flights.
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