Airways New Zealand to introduce 30/30 separation

21 September 2004

New Zealand's air traffic management provider, Airways New Zealand, intends to reduce its air traffic separation within the Auckland Oceanic FIR (flight information region) down to 30 nautical miles longitude and 30 nautical miles latitude in November 2004. This is the first such reduced separation to be implemented globally.

This new ICAO-approved separation standard will enable Airways New Zealand to further enhance the service it provides to airline customers on the busy trans-Tasman routes, says Airways New Zealand's Oceanic Manager, Mark Goodall.

"By reducing our separation standard we are effectively increasing our airspace capacity, but more importantly, we are also able to provide increased route flexibility. The bottom line is that it saves the airlines money through better operating efficiency gained by improved access to preferred routes and flight levels."

New Zealand's Oceanic airspace is one of the world's largest - over 34 million square kilometres. The busiest air routes are the highly competitive trans-Tasman market connecting New Zealand with Australia. Mark Goodall says it is the development of New Zealand's Oceanic Control System that will enable Airways New Zealand to safely introduce this reduction in aircraft separations.

"When we introduced the Oceanic Control System (OCS), we were set a series of deliverables by IATA - certain desired performance measures which they wanted to see delivered by the next generation of Oceanic traffic management systems. This is the final deliverable on those requirements for the South Pacific region."

While Airways New Zealand has had the capability to deliver this reduced separation for nearly five years now, it has only been recently that ICAO have provided formal approval of the reduction. Airways New Zealand is also leading with its introduction of Dynamic Airborne Re-routing (DARP), which has been successfully trialled with Air New Zealand and the FAA's Oakland Centre.

DARP allows aircraft to Upload a new flight path enroute, and with the aid of the Oceanic Control System's 'conflict probe' tool, Airways New Zealand's controllers can quickly ascertain if the re-route is safe, and then send a re-route clearance directly to the aircraft.

"User Preferred Routing between the major city pairs has also been implemented, and along with DARP and the soon-to-be introduced reduced separation standard, means that Airways New Zealand continues to provide what is internationally recognised as one of the most customer-focused and technologically enhanced air traffic management services in current operation", says Mr Goodall.

ENDS

Background Information: Airways New Zealand's Oceanic Control System (OCS)

Airways New Zealand considers its Oceanic Control System (OCS) as being at the forefront of Oceanic Enroute ATM technology development. Operating for a full five years as the 'sole means' oceanic air traffic management system for the Auckland Flight Information Region at Airways New Zealand's Oceanic Control Centre in Auckland, New Zealand, no other system has the full range of capabilities of the OCS. The OCS real time conflict probe has moved the standards of service provided to customers to a new level and fundamentally changed the controller's role. It is also the core technology of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Advanced Oceanic Technology and Procedures (ATOP) project.

Fixed routes, whether in the form of permanently defined tracks or flex-tracks (effectively fixed tracks defined every day) are not essential in an OCS environment. With OCS and its real time conflict probe, which instantly probes any revision of flight profile, there is no requirement for traffic to maintain fixed routes in order for controllers to be able to identify conflicts.

Airways New Zealand is therefore able to offer its airline customers full free flight - the ability to randomly re-route at any point of their flight to optimise wind patterns with resultant savings to users in terms of time and fuel burn.

The most distinguishing feature of the OCS is the real time conflict detection - it is fully automated. Aircraft flight profiles are "conflict probed" against all other aircraft within the airspace. Conflicts are automatically detected and advised to the controller for resolution. Further, the controller's function becomes one of conflict resolution focused on optimising service to airlines - as opposed to conflict detection.

In 2001 Airways International joined Lockheed Martin and Adacel in a successful bid for the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic control contract - called Advanced Technologies and Oceanic Procedures (ATOP). The consortium's solution, 'Ocean 21', is based on Airways' Oceanic Control System. Using advanced flight plan processing and display systems that exploit the latest computer and satellite technology, Oceans 21 positions the FAA's Oceanic capacity to meet the increasing demands of some of the world's busiest oceanic airspace.

The team will replace oceanic air traffic control systems at three FAA centres that handle oceanic traffic in international airspace over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans (Oakland, Anchorage and New York). The project includes delivering the oceanic air traffic control automation system, installation, training, and procedural development support and lifecycle system maintenance.

Corporate Communications Manager
Ph: (04) 04 471 1888
Email: insite@airways.co.nz

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