DMEAN Flight Planning Workshop

Brussels, 29 OCT 2008

Markus Kchle Mngr. Navigation and Performance Tyrolean Airways

Flight planning from a (regional) airline perspective

Tyrolean at a glance
1980 First scheduled flights as Tyrolean Airways with a single Dash 7 1985 First Dash 8-100 operator in Europe 1996 First airline to fly a commercial Cat IIIa approach with CRJ aircraft 1997 European Regional Airline of the Year ERA-Award 1999 Regional Airline of the Year ATW-Award 2007 European Regional Airline of the Year ERA-Silver Award First airline in Europe to equip Dash 8/300 and Dash 8/400 with HGS Expert in approach procedures into difficult airports such as: Altenrhein, Bolzano, Calvi, Courchevel, Elba, Brac, London City, Paros, Naxos, Innsbruck, Tortoli

Tyrolean facts
Tyrolean is operating all Austrian Airlines Group flights with aircraft up to 110 seats under the brand
- 58 aircraft (12 Dash8-300, 10 Dash8-400, 13 CRJ200, 9 Fokker70, 14 Fokker100) around 60% of the Austrian Airlines Group fleet - 5.198.000 Passangers (5.075.000 Schedule/ 123.000 Charter) represents roughly half of the groups passengers - 1.827 employees - 171.000 blockhours approx. 50 % of all blockhours within the AAG

Route Network:
7 Destinations in Austria (including St. Gallen/Altenrhein near Austrian boarder) 72 Destinations in Europe (mainly out of hub Vienna) over 2.180 scheduled flights a week (more than 2/3 of the groups flights)
more than 300 flights a day - so more than 1% of the daily IFR flights in the ECAC area (29.000 a day on average) is operated by Tyrolean

Tyrolean one of the biggest and most important regional airlines in Europe

The Tyrolean network is to a large extent (but not only) short haul flights with turboprops with a tough schedule, short turn around times and large number of cycles per day With all flight planning and operational specialities imposed by such an operation

Flightplanning as it was once....

At times when conventional navigation was still dominating aviation, flight planning could almost be done with a single document (nearly every information could be placed on a map) - but choice of trajectories was very limited and rather fixed

...as it is today
It looks as if much more route options exist today... ...but not really Airspace layout and sectorisation is still largely dependent on national boundaries and there are also many areas (temporarily) reserved for the military - flights have to fit to established airspace structure - so you are told where to go

Flight-planning issues when preparing the flight

To plan a flight from A to B, you or your (more or less) sophisticated flight planning tool normally needs information from several data sources: Maps/AIPs: for SID and STARs, approach procedures, for airways and their limits, direction, classification and usage times (CDR) RAD: tells you, if the airways you would prefer can be used or if your flight is subject to level cappings. And if you are allowed to use DCT (and for which distances) wherever there are no adequate procedures or airways published for portions of your flight

Problems arising(I)
Big variations in airspace definitions between different states (for example definition of lower/upper airspace) Example: flying VIE-HEL with DH8D in FL250 ABLOM3C ABLOM UM985 DBV UL999 SUPAK L999 RILAB M857 BOKSU UM857 GUNTA M857 SOKVA UM857 INTOR INTOR1M with harmonised airspace it could probably read: ABLOM3C ABLOM M985 DBV L999 RILAB M857 INTOR INTOR1M

Problems arising (II)

ICAO flightplan field 15 information and calculation of profile by IFPS Example from last Winter season: It is not allowed to file FL250 and 240 in Belgium - Therefore coming from UK with a turboprop aircraft (or a jet restricted to this level due to a service pack inoperative) flying in FL 250 you would think means descending before Belgium to 230 and when leaving to Germany climb up to 250 again - So you file according to publications of the airways ...BIG UL9 KONAN/N0360F230 UL607 KOK UM150 PITES/N0360F250 UM150... Yes the flight plan got acknowledged... But the flight is not without problems

Problems arising (II)

again one of the reasons behind is the difference in definition of lower/upper airspace between Belgium and Germany (230 is upper in Belgium but lower in Germany)

the ICAO syntax of field 15 of the flightplan means that the speed/level change PITES/N0360F250 indicates you are starting the climb from 230 to 250 at PITES

but flights in FL 230 are controlled in Germany by Langen ACC (lower

airspace) and above FL250 by Karlsruhe (upper airspace)

and so the flight is handed over from Belgium to Langen But as Eurocontrol processed the flightplan as PITES UM150 only Karlsruhe had a flight plan.....

Problems arising (II)

- luckily there is a lower airway existing to KRH so lets try instead to file PITES M150 KRH/N0340F250 UM150 but this gives an error again: as you know you start your climb with this syntax at KRH and there is no lower airway structure existing below UM150 after KRH.... flight plan rejected But there is a solution! In order that the flight can be handled to climb to upper airspace without extra coordination and everyone involved in the flight gets a flightplan, you end up with the following trajectory: UM150 PITES M150 LADAT/N0340F250 DCT KRH UM150 meaning you stay for 59NM more in FL230 (as there is no other point published to start the climb except you would use coordinates) but as the point LADAT is only published on the lower airway you cannot file therafter UM150 but instead have to use DCT to get to KRH. And believe me thats not the only climb profile calculation problem you are faced with......

Problems arising (II)

But anyhow since 25 SEP AIRAC Germany has closed FL250 in Rhein UIR; so you cannot file this routing mentioned before any more. So you have to make bigger detours and cannot make use of the TRA Lauter on weekend any more Detour: via EB/ED: 20NM and F230; via LF/LS 33NM and FL250/180!

Trajectory issues
The shortest route option is not always the cheapest one if you want to fly the cheapest route you have to compare several routes as the overflight fees vary between the states and may end up in a longer routing being cheaper, even if considering costs for time and fuel of the longer route. Flight planning around significant weather (to avoid thunderstorm, turbulence, icing) may also result in large detours if existing routes are not fileable due to the mentioned restrictions (RAD) On the day of flight: you have to check again if CDRs are available or not on certain trajectories

You may have to refile filed flightplans to avoid congested area(s)

But especially the very short distances in regional air traffic give almost no possibility for an alternative routing due to airway and airspace structures or if there is one, the detour is rather very large (easily up to the double of the distance)

...and on the day of ops

...the airline has planned a routing and profile according to load, performance, wind... and files an ATC flight plan ...Eurocontrol calculates a profile according to a few simple parameters under optimum circumstances the ATC routing is accepted without changes it is loaded into the aircrafts FMS (but most probably that is not the same what Eurocontrol and ATC have as vertical profile). Then the flight is executed under the assistance of the ATC avoiding eventually conflicting traffic by changes in speed, altitude and track So what was fed into the FMS is often not what is executed. Today not all involved in the aircrafts operation are constantly updated on the evaluation of the trajectory

Tracks far from optimum

So planning a flight today is really finding your way on prescribed tracks within rigid areas and sometimes even loaded with some tricky extras
So very often the routing is far from the optimum great circle distance

...and sometimes it is just to protect other traffic as in the case of EDDL-LOWS, where you have to plan and execute big detours around MUC TMA at any time - regardless the traffic system could eventually accommodate the more direct overflight = 50NM detour to given published route closed by RAD

Tracks far from optimum

Or its because there are no better airway links published or available (for whatever reason) LQSA-LOWW 51NM difference between flown track (318NM) and direct distance (267)

...and what is actually flown... (daily)

Tracks far from optimum

Same applies for LOWW LQSA
And a comparison what was flown (given by ATC)

Tracks far from optimum

LHBP-LQSA-LHBP Almost the same...

Tracks far from optimum

Or it cannot be shortened as in the case of LDSP-LOWW due to state boundaries and related ATC sectorisation

Tracks far from optimum

Example for detours due to RAD: compulsory via MAKOL/VADEN (= not allowing departures via Greece) LTAI - LOWW = 62NM detour

Tracks far from optimum

or EDDC-LTAI:

Detour of 96NM due to a RAD restriction in LK forcing the flights to a more eastern track
KOPIT BNO Not available for traffic Dest./Overfly LRBBFIR Overfly LB** This traffic shall file via UL620 HLV

Tracks far from optimum

or there exist military areas which have to be circumnavigated LOWW-ESSA 78NM difference between flown track and direct distance and even worse when RAD restrictions add to this, as for the return routing 150NM (total distance 845NM)

Tracks far from optimum

LOWW-LRIA Zig-zag flying due to non existing structure and RAD

Tracks far from optimum

LRIA-LOWW Almost the same although less zig-zag

....to summarize
There exist differences between flightplans and profiles
1) calculated and filed by operator, 2) calculated by IFPS, 3) profile calculated by FMS, and 4) profile and routing then given by ATC and executed as flight path

a lot of shorter routings not flight-planable but are given on a regular basis diverse airspace structures We need: harmonised airspace to ease planning and filing and to reduce amount of data Reduce restrictions of airway usage to the absolut minimum Identify shortcomings in airspace struture and try to find solutions to overcome where possible (adapt the airspace to whats needed and not the flights to whats given) More predictable routings (we often hear you get it anyhow in real live) - common data sharing between operator, flight planning tool, IFPS/CFMU, the ATCs and the pilots

Thanks for your Attention!