30/30 Separation

In the beginning of 2005 Airways New Zealand and Airservices Australia reduced separation between aircraft in their oceanic airspace down to 30 nautical miles longitude and 30 nautical miles latitude, the first such reduced separation in international airspace to be implemented globally. The FAA implemented towards the end of 2005 migrating the standard of their Pacific airspace in 2006.

This ICAO-approved reduced separation standard has enabled Airways New Zealand, the Federal Aviation Administration and other Air Navigation Service Providers that apply this standard, to further enhance the service they provide to their customers in the vast Oceanic airspace routes by effectively increasing airspace capacity and provide increased route flexibility.

This is assisting the airlines to reduce their fuel burn through better operating efficiency gained by improved access to preferred routes and flight levels. A pleasing consequence of this is the associated reduction in greenhouse gas emission from aircraft flying through New Zealand's oceanic airspace.

Investment by airlines and air navigation service providers in advanced technology, training and the authorisation process allows aircraft in remote regions to fly closer together – safely. The concept is known as Required Navigation Performance, where both the aircraft and crew, and the ground infrastructure are approved to allow for properly equipped flights to operate closer together than the traditional 100 nautical miles. In practice this means a greater number of flights are able to populate a given area of airspace, allowing more to operate on their optimum route and/or at the optimum altitude.

Air New Zealand has invested in aircraft systems which enables them to obtain approval for both RNP10 (which results in 50nm lateral and longitudinal separation) and RNP4 (which allows the use of a 30nm standard in oceanic regions). This separation standard is routinely applied on flights between Auckland and San Francisco.

Air traffic Control’s ability to allow closer separation between aircraft and therefore reduce the number of times where aircraft are held below the optimum altitude at all times and results in savings on today’s flight of 135 US Gallons = 1290 kgs reduced CO2 emissions

New Zealand's and the US Oceanic airspaces are among the world's largest totalling well over 60 million square kilometres, and it was the development of Airways New Zealand's Oceanic Control System and the FAA's Ocean21 system that has enabled them to safely introduce this reduction in aircraft separations.

To learn more about New Zealand's Oceanic Control System, click here.

 

 

Oceanic Separation Standards

 

 

Protected air volume 10 years ago

Protected air volume today is 6% of that 10 years ago